Professional Documents
Culture Documents
EXPERIMENT
ART: 1863-1922
CONSTRUCTIVISM RAYONNISM SUPREMATISM
including Kandinsky, Gabo, Malevich, Lissitzky,Tatlin, and others
today.
THE RUSSIAN EXPERIMENT
IN ART: 1863-1922
THE RUSSIAN
EXPERIMENT IN ART
1 863-1 922
CAMILLA GRAY
A i[^
Contents
Introduction 6
CHAPTER ONE
1860's-90's 9
CHAPTER TWO
1890-1905 37
CHAPTER THREE
1905-10 65
CHAPTER FOUR
1909-11 93
CHAPTER FIVE
1912-14 131
CHAPTER SIX
1914-17 185
CHAPTER SEVEN
1917-21 219
CHAPTER EIGHT
1921-22 244
Index 292
Introduction
mo's-M's
foundation by Catherine the Great in 1754. It was not until the 1870s
that the patronage of the Tsar, the aristocracy, and the army of
bureaucrats was replaced by the millionaire merchants of Moscow
of whom Mamontov was so illustrious an example.
'Mamontov's circle', as this colony of artists came to be called, was
drawn together by the common determination to create a new
Russian culture. It grew out of a group of artists who had declared
their secession from the Academy of Art in 1863 - two years after the
emancipation of the serfs. The thirteen artists who made this heroic
gesture of apparent economic suicide were inspired by ideals of
'bringing art to the people'. They called themselves the 'Wanderers'
because they thought to put their ideals into practice by taking
travelling exhibitions throughout the countryside. Like their con-
temporaries and friends, the writers Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and
Turgenev, and the composers Moussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-
Korsakov, these artists sought to justify their activity by making their
art 'useful' to society. They repudiated the philosophy of 'art for art's
sake' which they identified with the current academic tradition.
Centred in the Petersburg Academy, this tradition derived its
standards mainly from international neo-classicism, tempered by the
introduction of German romanticism (for example, the Nazarenes)
in the 1820s. The 'Wanderers' defied this tradition, saying that art
should be primarily concerned with, and subordinate to, reality. 'The
true function of art is and comment on it'; 'Reality is
to explain life
more beautiful than its art.' Such were the dogmas
representation in
proclaimed by Chernishevsky, the aesthetic propagandist of the
1
shevsky, and they therefore sought, in at first an only too literal and
literary fashion, to depict the peasant as the new hero, and his innocence
and the austerity of his life as the all-important theme. This mission of
the 'Wanderers' to arouse compassion and sympathy for the common
man was an unprecedented subject for art in Russia, not only by
virtue of its 'social' impulse, but by its emphasis on the traditional
Russian way of life, for since Peter the Great's europeanization of the
country, everything Russian had been dismissed as barbarous and
boorish, and 'culture' had come to mean something essentially foreign.
The 'Wanderers' were not themselves directly involved with the
Slavophile movement which rejected the Western culture and
economic pattern which Peter the Great had introduced into Russia,
but many of the following generation of artists turned away from the
West and sought to create a new national culture which would be
based on the Russian peasant and the long-neglected national artistic
traditions. The Slavophiles felt that Russia's was a peculiar destiny
which would pursue an historical pattern of development radically
different from that of the West; a destiny inspired by the mission of
Orthodox Christianity to the West, in which Moscow and the former
glory of Muscovy would supplant the present sovereignty of Peters-
burg and all that she stood for. It was this turning to Moscow which
is significant in art.
For Moscow became the centre of this nationalist movement which
lies at the base of the modern movement in Russian art. The repudia-
tion of international neo-classicism which had dominated the Russian
artistic field since the end of the eighteenth century, and the ensuing
10
It was, as we have seen, among the Moscow merchants that this
of their young son Andrei's health, and partly to indulge their own
interests. For they were both already deeply interested in art; Mamon-
tov had trained as a singer in Italy, and his wife, a devoutly religious
woman, was involved with the revival of the liturgy of the Orthodox
Church and was particularly interested in the adaptations of Late
Roman art to Early Christian uses. It was Elizabeth Mamontov
whose forceful personality and deep religious convictions later
II
inspired the building of a little church at Abramtsevo which, as we
shall see, led directly to the practical revival of Russian medieval art
and architecture, an influence which it is difficult to overestimate in
the development of modern art in Russia.
The circle of Russian painters which the young Mamontovs dis-
covered in Rome was headed by two adherents of the 'Wanderers'
ideals. One of these, the sculptor Antokolsky (i 843-1902), was among
the earliest members of the group and enjoyed an enormous popular
success in his time. The other, the painter Vassily Polenov (1844-
1927), was from Moscow and had studied at the Moscow College and
been influenced by the first Russian landscape painter, Savrassov.
Polenov spent much of his life at Abramtsevo, and was possibly the
most important personality in the creation of the colony. The third
outstanding figure in this emigre Russian art world was the young
art historian Adrian Prakhov who, like the artists, was studying in
Rome on a scholarship (his from Petersburg University, that of the
artists from their Academies). Later, as a professor, Prakhov began
12
i Leonid Pasternak, Moscow Artists, 1902. Some members of the Abramtsevo
colony: in the centre, thumbs in his waistcoat, is Konstantin Korovin; Valentin
Serov is seen drawing at the table, and behind him Apollinarius Vasnetsov
13
became one of the chief activities of the colony. It was a workshop
both for craftsmen skilled in traditional arts, and for artists of the
colony who were interested in this practical revival of ancient
artistic traditions, of which Abramtsevo in retrospect emerges as the
pioneering force.
In the spring of 1874, when the Mamontovs returned home from
their winter in Italy, they were accompanied by some of their friends
from Rome. This year they also stopped for a few days in Paris and
there met Ilya Repin, a colleague and close friend of Polenov's, who
was studying in Paris at this time. Both were eager to return to Russia,
finding little to interest them in Paris, and under Mamontov's warm
invitation and Polenov's eager support, Repin decided to move to
Moscow. Also living in Paris at this time was the widow of the opera
composer, Serov. Serov had been a colleague and great friend of
Mamontov's, and so with typical generosity he invited the widow
and her nine-year-old son Valentin to come and live with him at
Abramtsevo. With Polenov, Repin, the Serovs and the Mamontovs
as foundation-members, the Abramtsevo colony thus came into
painters, his philosophy and work exemplifies the ideals of the early
pioneers. He was, moreover, a far more articulate and distinguished
master of his medium than any of the original 'thirteen'. One of
77/. 2 Repin's best-known works is They Did Not Expect Him. This painting,
which was executed at Abramtsevo, is one of his few full-sized paint-
14
ings, for Rcpin spent much time working on studies before executing
a painting in full-scale. These studies are generally considered to be
finer than his large works, and in many of those executed at Abramt-
sevo one can discern an extremely talented draughtsman with a real
his social ideals: 'After the crude propaganda style of the men of the
sixties, a movement of intellectual nationalism arose which valued a
painting for its broad idea and poster-style of expression: in technique
an intellectual anonymity was sought. Even the great talent of Repin
was diluted dead atmosphere; the lack of artistic intensity gave
in this
to his work a Thus wrote the biographer of
characterless form.'
Repin's great pupil, Mikhail Vrubel. 3
not until Isaac Levitan (1 860-1 900) that the Russian school of land-
scape painting produced a really creative and expressive master.
Polenov's contribution to the Abramtsevo colony, however, was
not primarily as a painter, but rather as an archaeologist and teacher.
In the Moscow College, where he was appointed a professor in 1882,
his liberal influence and forceful personality encouraged such painters
as Levitan and Korovin, both of whom he was responsible for intro-
ducing to the Abramtsevo colony as theatrical designers in the 1880s.
During the early formative years of the colony, Polenov contributed
much scientific and archaeological knowledge to the group. His
influence was particularly significant in the building of the little
III. 3 Abramtsevo church, begun in 1880.
The idea of building this church was prompted by the severe
flooding of the local. river which bounded the Abramtsevo estate in
16
the spring of 1 880, thus preventing the local population from reaching
a church that Easter. It was decided therefore to build one on the estate
against such another occasion. The idea was taken up with immense
enthusiasm by the members of the colony, who all began doing
designs for the building. After much discussion it was decided to
build the church in the style of a medieval Novgorod church accord-
ing to Apollinarius Vasnetsov's (1 845-1 926) design. To forward the
project Polenov dug out many archaeological documents which had
belonged to his father, a pioneer archaeologist who had inspired his
son with his own enthusiasm for medieval Russian architecture and
painting. He had taken the sixteen-year-old boy round the country-
side on horseback, pointing out the surviving examples of this
tradition, and Polenov, who was already fond of drawing, had made
many sketches on this journey which he now produced in Abramtsevo
for general study. Elizabeth Mamontov read aloud excerpts from
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historical works while discussion about the church raged among the
colony's members. Everyone contributed designs, ideas, scraps of
historical information - there was little relevant material published
at this date, as scholarly research into Russian medieval art had only
begun in the 1850s. 4
In fact, even icon paintings were almost entirely unknown in their
original state, for centuries of overpainting and the tradition of
encasing paintings in gold and silver had obscured their surfaces. The
discovery of icons as works of art and the consequent demand for
restoration to their original brilliant colour and purity of line was a
slow affair in Russia and was not systematized until after the Revolution
of 19 1 7. Scholarly work on the history of icon paintings began at the
beginning of the nineteenth century with the Stroganov family, who
started collecting together the commissions that their ancestors had
given to contemporary painters for their famous seventeenth-century
workshop. The Abramtsevo colony was the pioneering force in the
artistic application of these early scientific studies and discoveries.
As a result of this group-examination of Russian medieval art and
history, inspired by the idea of building a church on the estate, the
Abramtsevo colony decided to visit Yaroslavl and Rostov-the-Great,
where some of the finest buildings and wall-paintings were to be
seen. The expedition was organized by Polenov. They returned
loaded with sketches, and work on the little church began in earnest.
Many alterations were made to Apollinarius Vasnetsov's original
plans, Polenov in particular contributing ornamental designs inspired
by carvings on local peasant buildings. While looking for such motifs,
Ills 4, 6 Polenov decided to bring back a carved lintel from a neighbouring
village house which had particularly pleased him. This was the
foundation of the museum of national peasant art which still exists at
Abramtsevo and which later was the direct source of inspiration for
the revolutionary theatrical designs of the Mamontov 'Private
Ills 11,12 Opera': for instance, Rimsky-Korsakov's Snegurochka.
The little Abramtsevo church was completed at the end of 1882.
It was the first communal labour of the colony. Everyone had con-
Peuta* docna.
Hax. I AdpajntntKOM Myjrr
20
8 The Iconostasis of the
Abramtsevo church. The paintings
on it were executed by
Apollinarius Vasnetsov, Ilya Repin
and Vassily Polenov
21
Shwartz was an and it was in the course of his studies that
historian,
he conceived of reviving a forgotten past in all its detail by
this idea
means of painting. His pictures are frankly those of an historian, and it
is for his attention to detail and painstaking accuracy that they are
valuable.
Vassily Surikov (i 848-1912) was the first of the 'Wanderers' to
combine national ideals with an urge to find a new language in which
to express those ideals. Born in Krasnoyarsk, an outpost of Siberia,
Surikov set out for Petersburg on horseback in 1868 to join the
Academy. He was a year on his journey, for on his way he made
frequent and leisurely stops in the ancient towns through which he
passed. In particular Kazan and Nizhni-Novgorod impressed this
twenty-year-old Cossack, but it was Moscow that bowled him over.
22
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io Mikhail Vrubel,
Egyptian costume design,
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24
11 Victor Vasnctsov,
Snegurochka,
a costume design, 1883
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12 Victor Vasnetsov,
Snegurochka,
design for a stage set, 1883
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13 Konstantin Korovin, Don Quixote, stage set for Scene 4, 1906
of the gay, ideal life of Abramtsevo. This talent for catching a likeness
Serov later developed and he became the most successful and brilliant
portraitist in the 1890s and first decade of this century. But before this
he was a remarkable landscape painter in a more sensuous and less Ills 15,16
nostalgic vein than his master Levitan. Serov, like Korovin, was a ///. 14
most beneficial influence in the Moscow College where he taught
from 1900 up till 1909. Though Larionov reports that he was too
busy to be a really good teacher, he was so superb a technical master
of the many media in which he practised, that his personal professional
attitude to composition and extraordinarily high standard of tech-
nical discipline did not fail to impress students at a time when such
accomplishment was all too rare in Russia. Serov, like Korovin, was
one of the few Muscovites to bridge the gap between the two art
worlds. He collaborated on the essentially Petersburg World of Art
magazine (which will be discussed in the next chapter) and took part
in this group's exhibitions which brought together the artistic
29
16 Valentin Serov,
Portrait of the actress Ermoloim, 1905
in Vrubel's development. At this point began that relentless search
for a new vocabulary which was the driving force through-
pictorial
out his work. As he himself wrote to his sister: 'The mania of being
absolutely obliged to say something new does not leave me . .only
.
17 Mikhail Vrubel,
Valery Briussov,
1905
18 Mikhail Vrubel,
The Dance of Tamara,
1890
of all wish to return. It was here that Vrubel discovered the eloquence
of line
32
Vrubcl described it as 'A which unites in itself the male and
spirit
looms out of the mist, dominant at last, but with its empire gone.
During the years 1885-8 Vrubcl lived a poverty-stricken life in
Kiev, to which he had returned, after his short stay in Odessa, with
memories of so much former happiness. In 1 887 his hopes for working
again on religious monumental painting were revived by the announce-
ment of a competition for designs for the new Cathedral of Saint
Vladimir. This church had been begun in 1862, in the full tide of
Slavophile enthusiasm, to celebrate the millennium of the Russian
nation. Although Vrubel more than any other contemporary artist
would seem to be the obvious person to be given the commission,
Victor Vasnetsov, fresh from his work on the little Abramtsevo
church, won the competition instead. Vasnetsov's designs were weak
and derivative, altogether lacking in understanding of the peculiar
medium of monumental painting in which Vrubel had already shown
such mastery. Vrubel himself had the final bitter experience of being
offered the job of designing ornamental panels on the lower side walls
of the church. These, with his innate humility, he executed with an
intuition for ornamental decorative motifs which again and again
strikes us in his work.
Apart from his work on monumental painting, Vrubel had con-
centrated largely on watercolour during these last ten years; he
considered this medium to be the most exacting discipline. While
still at the Academy he and his intimate companion Valentin Serov
had taken seriously to the study of nature which was so foreign to
the tradition of their institution. Both of them were pupils of Repin,
but Vrubel soon violently reacted against the philosophy of his master.
It is interesting to read his reaction to the 'Wanderers' ' exhibition of
1883 at which a painting by Repin was they; iece de resistance: 'Form, the
33
:
The artist should not become the slave of the public: he himself
is the best judge of his works, which he must respect and not lower
its significance of that of a publicity stunt ... to steal that delight
which differentiates a spiritual approach to a work of art, from that
with which one regards an opened printed page, can even lead to
a complete atrophy in the demand for such delights and that is to :
It was shortly after these remarks that we are told he began reading
Kant, which strengthened his belief in the study of nature. Vrubel was
not only at home in contemporary German philosophy, but was very
More than any other artist Vrubel was the inspiration to the avant-
garde in Russia during the next twenty years. He might be termed
the Russian Cezanne, for they share a number of characteristics: both
artists bridge the centuries in their work, and not only the centuries,
but the two visions which so radically divide the nineteenth century
from the twentieth; 'modern art' from the art of Western Europe
since the Renaissance and the birth of 'easel painting'.
Like Cezanne, Vrubel met with little recognition during his life-
time; what little he had was almost entirely due to the vision and
efforts of Savva Mamontov with whom he worked in the theatre,
and in the Abramtsevo workshops, and for whom he executed almost
his only paintings.
35
y r^" -;
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,
1
Unlike his friend Serov, it was notso much landscapes and a direct
interest in nature that engrossed him. Most of his drawings are studies
of flowers, but not of flowers growing in the fields in their natural
Ills ig, 20 environment; they are penetrating close-ups of the tangled interplay
of forms, giving them in their artificial isolation a peculiar dramatic
rhythm. Or, again, a vase of flowers whose play of jostling forms
cascade in a splendid curling mass. Vrubel is at his greatest in these
exquisite watercolour and pencil sketches. His searching pencil
attacks the model from every viewpoint: in transparent interweaving
patterns, in balancing mass against mass, in forms built up in cleaving
angled thrusts, in mosaic-like patterning. It is for this tireless, ex-
haustive examination of the possibilities of pictorial representation
that the next generations so revered Vrubel, as well as for his extra-
ordinary imaginative vision. Although he formulated no new pictorial
vocabulary and founded no school, he made possible the experiments
of the following decades; he pointed the way.
36
CHAPTER TWO
1890-1905
37
beauty. In short, the philosophy which has been much abused as
'art for art's sake'.
39
of the Hermitage Museum who later contributed much to the pictorial
section of the World of Art magazine. There were other May College
members of the 'Nevsky Pickwickians', but in 1890, when they all
left the college, they dropped out of the group.
at this date and were not directly introduced until the 'World of Art'
exhibitions in the early years of this century and in the later numbers
of their magazine. 2 Zola's book L'CEuure, published in 191 8, was,
40
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ill"
>
IP 5'
history of contemporary French and German art up till the 1920s were
Richard Muther's pioneer history of nineteenth-century painting 3
and that by Meier-Grafe, the friend of Bing and champion of the 'Art
Nouveau' movement, 4 which appeared in 1908. We find many
references to their works in Kasimir Malevich's writings. The chapter
on Russian art in Muther's history was written by Benois at the request
of the author, whom he had known in Munich on his frequent visits
in the early 1890s.
If Benois usually spoke on painting and architecture, Filosofov
would talk on Turgenev and his times, or the ideas during the reign
41
of Alexander the First. Bakst, who looked more like a clerk than an
art student, with his red hair, small close-set, blue eyes, steel-rimmed
glasses and retiring manner, would speak less than the others, but was
always ready to join in with his gay laughter and quick wit. This
modest young man had a hard life, for he was left with a dependent
mother, two sisters and a younger brother to support while still a
student. It is reported that he never became despondent, however, and
was always generous and sympathetic with the quarrelsome friends.
Although he was the least colourful personality of the group, it is
Bakst more than any of the friends who has become identified with its
creative work. In his exotic decors for Diaghilev's ballet, such as
Ills 22, 23 Sheherezade or Les Orientales and his Hellenistic L'Apres-midi d'un
Faune and Narcisse, the 'World of Art' found its fullest realization.
Towards the end of 1890 a country cousin of Filosofov's arrived in
Saint Petersburg from his native Perm and was introduced to the
'Pickwickians'. This stocky plump young man with rosy cheeks and
a large sensuous mouth was Sergei Diaghilev. The presence of this
hearty young provincial with the boisterous laugh was at first
accepted cautiously by the young aesthetes, and only as a favour to his
cousin whom they all admired very much. On his part, Diaghilev
abroad for year, .is was the custom among such families in Russia,
.1
gentsia 111 Russia. None of the group seems to have taken his university
career seriously Diaghilev, we are told, was far more interested in
his music- lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov and with meeting important
people, than with working for his legal degree; it is hardly surprising
that he took six years instead of the usual four to graduate!
They were at this point by the Muscovites Screw, a great
joined
friend of Bakst's from Ins student days at the Petersburg Academe,
and Korovin. This added to the professional status of the group of
dilettantes. A little later Nicholas Roerich joined them. Roerich had
also been at the May College, but was a tew years junior to the
4:>
Mamontov's Abramtsevo experiments in reviving the cottage
industries. Abramtsevo, many professional artists used to come
As at
44
.
45
:
Painters'. They were brilliant artistic events and marked the beginning
of the 'World of Art' as an exhibiting society. Shortly afterwards the
magazine appeared.
The year 1896 had proved a year of dispersal among the group's
members. Benois, now graduated from the University and married,
left for Paris. Somov and Benois's young nephew Lanseray, who had"
the whole of our artistic life, that is, as illustrations I shall use real
painting, the articles will be outspoken, and then in the name of
the magazine, propose to organize a series of annual exhibitions,
I
and finally, to attract to the magazine the new industrial art which
is developing in Moscow and Finland.
6
46
and 'right' began to split the members of the group
into two camps:
those who were above all, who on principle attacked
for the 'new'
everything they considered narrow, provincial or outmoded; and the
more conservative 'right' who were scholarly and even eclectic in the
broadness of their knowledge and sympathies. The first category
included Nurok, Nuvel, Bakst and Korovin, the second Benois,
Lanseray and Merezhkovsky. Between the two came Filosofov the
'peacemaker' and Diaghilev, who intellectually always took second
place to his brilliant cousin. Serov sided sometimes with one camp
and sometimes with the other, but as both he and Korovin were only
visiting members of the group, their opinion counted for less in the
continual debates which shaped the future magazine.
Having decided more or less on the content and format of the
magazine, which was to be in every way epoch-making, the next
problem was to find a patron to finance the enterprise. Princess
Tenisheva, whose crafts centre on her estate at Talashkino has already
been mentioned, had been very friendly with Benois during the last
two years.She was therefore considered an obvious person to
approach about the ambitious project. When she learnt that Diaghilev
was to be the general editor of the magazine, however, she was
sceptical about the idea, for she, like many society personalities, knew
Diaghilev only as a frivolous and smart young man, not as a serious
student of art. It was only after the two exhibitions which Diaghilev
arranged in 1897 that the Princess decided to back the magazine.
Another patron had still to be found to share the burden of the heavy
initial cost, and Savva Mamontov was obviously the most hopeful
47
year in the making in Germany. The type they eventually decided
on was an eighteenth-century face of which they had managed to find
the matrices. It was thus a pioneering enterprise in printing techniques,
as well as in art.
sophy of 'art for art's sake' was thus disputed even within its own
stronghold, However, the 'World of Art' in so far as it can be identified
with a single philosophy was inspired by the idea of an art which
existed in its own right, not subservient to a religious, political or
social propaganda motive. 'The "World of Art" is above all earthly
things, above the stars, there it reigns proud, secret and lonely as on
a snowy peak.' Thus Bakst described the emblem which he designed
for the magazine. 7 Art was seen as a form of mystical experience, a
means through which eternal beauty could be expressed and com-
municated - almost a new kind of religion.
Symbolist ideas were further and more explicitly introduced by the
writerswho shortly joined the magazine. The poets Blok, Balmont
and the religious writers Merezhkovsky and Rosanov were repre-
sented side by side with the parent French school: Baudelaire,
Verlaine and Mallarme. The music of Scriabin was also discussed in
its pages, thus making it a true 'World of Art'.
48
25 Alexander Golovin, Boris Godunov, design for a backcloth, 1907
49
These 'World of Art' exhibitions were the first public demonstra-
tions of the group. They were intended to be as international in scope
as the magazine, but this proved too expensive an undertaking. The
first one took place in 1898, a few months before the magazine was
50
exhibition.The Symbolist painter par excellence, Borissov-Mussatov,
was the only artist to combine the characteristics of both the Moscow
and Petersburg schools. The differences between them gradually
became more and more emphasized as the first decade of the twentieth
century came to a close.
the 'World of Art' was not superseded by the French until the early
years of this century. The last numbers of the magazine, however,
were entirely devoted to the French Post-Impressionists - Bonnard,
Vallotton and the ideas of the Nabi group; and with the final number
of 1904, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Cezanne were introduced to the
Russian public.
With this discovery of the French Post-Impressionists, the magazine
ceased. The group felt that their propaganda mission was accom-
plished. They had succeeded in restoring contact with the Western
European artistic avant-garde and made the Russian intelligentsia
aware of the national artistic heritage as a whole. With the ground
prepared for the new international culture which they had dreamed
of, they abandoned preaching for the arena of creative activity.
It is and particularly in the ballet that one must look
in the theatre
for the creative work of
the 'World of Art'. Here their ideals of an
integrated, perfected existence, a complete realization of life-made-art
was possible. In a medium where every gesture could be synchronized
with a musical pattern, where costume and decor and dancer became
integrated, they were able to create a visual whole, a complete
illusion, a world of perfect harmony.
The man responsible for introducing the 'World of Art' to the stage
was Prince Sergei Volkonsky, the newly appointed Director of the
Imperial Theatres. Volkonsky appointed Filosofov to an administra-
tive post in the Dramatic Theatre; and Diaghilev became a junior
assistant to the Director. However, although only these two young
men had official posts in the Imperial Theatre administration, the
whole group would convene to discuss what innovations could be
introduced through their friends' new position. Their first action was
to take over the official Year Book of the Theatre's productions.
Diaghilev managed with his friends to make this a brilliant, scholarly
and impressive affair which even attracted the attention of the Tsar.
Benois had meanwhile been given a commission to design the decor
51
J
26-28 Alexander Benois, Lc Pavilion d'Armide, two costume designs and stage
set, 1907
52
dismissed in such a way was barred from any further employ-
that he
ment inthe service of the Crown. This was the reason why the 'Ballet-
Russe de Diaghilev' was brought to Europe and America, but was
never seen in Russia itself 8
Thus Telyakovsky came to rely mainly, not on Diaghilev, but on
Benois. In 1903 Benois and the composer Cherepnin approached
Telyakovsky with the idea of a ballet with a story in the style of The
young prince dreams
Tales of Hoffman, an old favourite of Benois: a
about a Gobelin tapestry, which suddenly comes to life and its figures
climb down and begin to dance with him. On waking he discovers a
shawl left by the Princess Armida on the ground. Telyakovsky was
not much taken by this unconventional idea and Le Pavilion d'Armide Ills 26-28
was not actually put into production until 1907, by which time
Telyakovsky himself invited the now established Benois to carry out
his early project. Benois called upon a promising young choreographer
53
called Michael Fokine to arrange the ballet, and they worked on it all
that summer with Cherepnm. Towards the end of that time Fokine
suggested that a very brilliant pupil of his should be introduced into
the ballet. Thiswas Nijinsky Nijmsky had created the part of Armida's
.
slave for his debut, and a pas de trois was inserted for him with Fokine
and Anna Pavlova. Such was the first and only ballet production of
the 'World of Art' to be seen in the Mariinsky Theatre. The success of
this venture inspired the idea of taking a season of Russian opera and
54
the exhibition, for few icons had been cleaned at this date. (It was not
until the exhibition of 19 13 held in Moscow to celebrate the ter-
centenary of the Romanov dynasty that Russian icon painting was
revealed in all its original purity of colour and line.) In addition,
Court portraits of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and
examples from all periods of Russian art were included - always with
the exception of the despised 'Wanderers' - ending with the youngest
Moscow artists who had only recently begun to exhibit with the
56
30 Matislav Dobuzhinsky, Man in Glasses, 1905-6
the great contribution which they made to both the Russian and
Western scene, they saw their ambitions justified, and the creation of
a new international culture springing from Russia as a reality.
We have already distinguished two main directions in the 'World
of Art' that of Petersburg (line) and that of Moscow (colour). In both
:
cases their most important work was done in the theatre, and the
influence of 'theatrical' devices is paramount in the pictorial revolution
which they continued.
To take the Petersburg school first: this was headed by Benois, and
the chief innovation in pictorial composition was in finding new ways
of rendering space without relying on perspective. Many of the
devices were borrowed straight from the stage, for example, the use
of wings to create depth in planes, or the use of overhanging frontal
panels. These latter often represented leaves creating a pantheistic
atmosphere, a secret world enclosed and guarded by mother nature,
typical of Symbolist feeling. An emphasis on the 'felt' rather than
57
3i
Alexander Benois,
Versailles under Snow,
1905
77/. 33 viewpoint was used to create a sense of immediacy and intimacy with
the pictorial scene: this was a device much used by Benois in his
III. 31 evocations of Versailles and the world of Louis XIV, or of the classical
style of Saint Petersburg of Peter, or the Rococo of Catherine the
Great. Another favourite device, derived from the Renaissance
Ills 1 6, 30 painters, was the painting of a window at the back of a scene through
which another scene was glimpsed; or the repetition of a scene, or
comment on it from another angle, achieved through reflections in a
mirror. Another characteristic transferred from the theatre to easel
77/. 32 painting was the use of silhouette, in particular the exaggerated
32
Konstantin Somov,
The Kiss,
1902
33 Valentin Scrov, Peter the First, 1907
59
This new emphasis on the flatness of the canvas surface which the
Petersburg continued from Vrubel was likewise pursued by
artists
where the flat ground stretches endlessly to the horizon and where the
heat has thrown up great shimmering white curves in the equally
"measureless blue.
The influence of the Impressionist painters on Korovin's work was
reflected not in a close attention to accurate visual representation of a
scene in terms of light and colour: the Russian artist has never been
notable for his interest in visual reality, but in his use of a continuous
all-over brushstroke rhythm merging one element with another,
weighting evenly background and object, so that the figure becomes
a patch of colour rather than an isolated arbitrarily defined element.
In a similar way Golovin developed Vrubel's experiments in his
decorative 'carpet-like' weaving of motifs, which reduce the whole
to a vibrating unity of colour rhythms. Golovin's work, like that of
Korovin, with whom he constantly co-operated, is essentially of the
theatre. It created an atmosphere into which the spectator is in-
evitably drawn. Such examples of Golovm's and Korovin's work as
///. 25 the decor for Diaghilev's Paris production of Boris Godunov and the
III. 2g 1902 production ofRuslan and Ludmilla at the Mariinsky Theatre were
pioneers in their achievement of a visual unity, and continued directly
the early productions of Mamontov's 'Private Opera' company.
The only painter to unite the costume-painting of the Petersburg
artists with their inspiration derived from the eighteenth century,
60
and the Moscow artists with their colour experiments, was Victor
Borissov-Mussatov (i 870-1905). After Vrubel, Borissov-Mussatov
was the most significant and influential painter in Russia at this time.
Borissov-Mussatov was a native o^ the eastern Volga city o{
Saratov, which was the chief provincial art centre in Russia at this time
up to the 1920s. (In 1924 the large exhibition of German Expressionist
painting which was sent to Russia visited Moscow, Leningrad and
Saratov.) The Radishchcv Museum in Saratov boasted an unusually
enlightened collection for the time, with a particularly fine collection
of Montecelli's work. At a very early age Mussatov began attending
drawing classes at the Radishchev Museum. Showing promise, he
then left his native town to enrol in the Moscow College of Painting,
Sculpture and Architecture. In 1891 he transferred to the Petersburg
Academy and was among the last of those taught by Chistyakov.
Still unsatisfied, he returned after a year to Moscow and began work-
ing in earnest. His early work is academic, his line hard and his colour
cold, but while still in Moscow the future Symbolist dreamer begins
to show through this student discipline. In 1895 he left for Paris and
during the next four years worked in Gustave Moreau's studio,
famous for its brief housing of the future Fauve painters. Mussatov
made no contact, however, with them. He was first struck, like
Diaghilev the year before, by Bastien-Lepage. This early interest was
soon succeeded by Puvis de Chavannes, alike the model of the Nabi
group and the 'World of Art' painters. The similarity in interest and
purpose of these two groups I have already pointed out, but it is one
which would make an interesting detailed comparison, particularly
in the idea of painting as part of a total environment.
It was under the influence of Puvis de Chavannes that Mussatov
61
34 Victor Borissov-Mussatov, Autumn Evening, study for a tresco, 1903
in the classical style - just such a house and pavilion as the English
Ills 34, 35, artist Conder loved to paint. With its white colonnades and rounded
62
3f
64
CHAPTER TH REE
1905-10
members of the 'World of Art' and the Symbolist school was later
realized in a physical inter-development of literature and painting
which is one of the most outstanding characteristics of the Cubo-
Futurist and subsequent schools of abstract painting which developed
in Russia during the years 19 10-21. Thus these Symbolist magazines
not only included the work of Briussov, Balmont and Blok and the
French writers from whom they sought their inspiration, but also
devoted space to developments in painting, music and architecture.
The pioneer work in Russian art history begun by the 'World of
Art' was continued in a number of magazines established during this
65
period. The moving figure in this activity was Benois. Already in
1903 he had founded The Artistic Treasury of Russia, 3 in 1907 this
was followed by The Old Years, 4 and in 1909 Apollon made its
appearance. 5 These magazines mark the first attempt to create a
systematic research into the history of art, and in particular of Russian
art.Here we find the first attempts to relate Russian movements in
art to theirEuropean counterparts. The history of Byzantine traditions
in Russia is likewise traced, and the sources of Russian folk-art. The
great private collections were given their first publicity in these
publications, including those of the early patrons of icon painting,
the recent collectors among Moscow merchants of later Europeanized
court art, and the even more recent collectors of Oriental and modern
European art.
The magazine Apollon is particularly valuable to an historian of
modern art in Russia, for it contains detailed reviews of exhibitions
during the period in which was published - the vital years of 1909
it
66
Rachmaninov and Mcdtncr. The seventeen-year-old Prokofiev gave
his firstpublic concert at one of these evenings; and it was here too
that Rimsky-Korsakov's young pupil Igor Stravinsky gave the first
performance of an original work entitled Fireworks. It happened
that Sergei Diaghilev was in the audience on this evening in 1909, and
having heard and become enthusiastic over this unknown young
composer's piece, in his inimitable fashion, Diaghilev demanded that
he should take over the work of writing a score for his projected
ballet Firebird. (He had already commissioned Liadov to do this work,
but since that composer had so far produced nothing, Diaghilev
decided to hand over the commission to Stravinsky.) Thus began a
most happy and historic co-operative enterprise, in which Stravinsky
wrote the music for ten of Diaghilev's ballets, and through this activity
was introduced to the West, where he eventually settled.
Another direct outcome of the 'World of Art' movement, and
one of no small consequence to the development of painting in Russia
during the next fifteen years, was the creation of a picture-buying
public among the middle classes. 'Culture' and collecting paintings
became an essential adjunct of the respectable wealthy citizen. The
subjects of these collections varied, and again reflect the influence of
the 'World of Art' in forming the taste of the following generation.
Thus Russian portrait painting of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
century became fashionable after the Diaghilev exhibition of 1905
which brought this long forgotten school back to the notice and
favour of the Russian public. The new collecting urge had an even
more important effect, since it was the means through which examples
of French Post-Impressionist paintings were brought into Russia,
where they exercised a powerful influence on the younger painters.
Most illustrious among such collections were those of Sergei Shchukin
and Ivan Morosov, both of Moscow.
Sergei Shchukin was a small man whose half-Mongol features,
with flashing black eyes under bristling eyebrows, have been so
dramatically recorded for us by Henri Matisse. His collection was
phenomenally rich in works by Matisse and Picasso.
He had four brothers, all of whom were collectors, but only Sergei
was interested in contemporary art. As we saw in Chapter I, he first
came across the work of the French Impressionists when his friend and
fellow-collector Botkm, who was then resident in Paris, introduced
67
him to the gallery of Durand-Ruel and called his attention to a
work of Claude Monet of whom he was - and in Russia a
a great
pioneer - admirer. Shchukin immediately bought a Monet, Argenteuil
Lilac.This event took place in 1897 and marks the beginning of
Shchukin's extraordinary collection. By the outbreak of the First
World War in 1 9 1 4 it numbered 221 works of the French Impressionist
68
;
up till 1920. 11
It was Matisse who introduced Shchukin to Picasso. Between this
69
there was only one Picasso. Predominant in his collection were
Cezanne, Monet, Gauguin and Renoir. He also bought many works
by the Nabi school and commissioned Maurice Denis, Bonnard and
Vuillard to execute large-scale panels for his house. 12 Denis had a
great following in Russia, which he visited several times during this
work more than that of any other French painter was
period, for his
sympathetic to the Petersburg Symbolist school of literature among
whom he found ardent supporters; work and articles by him were
frequently reproduced in their magazines.
Thus through the collections of Morosov and Shchukin, the Rus-
sian artists were given as it were a concentrated course in the
revolutionary French painting of the last forty years, and the most
advanced ideas and movements of the last ten years were even more
familiar in Moscow than in Paris itself where the public did not have
the advantage of a selection made for them by the masterly eye of
such men.
It is hardly surprising that such stimulus should have precipitated
a revolution. Already by 1905 the successful establishment of the
'World of Art' movement and its original propagandists was provok-
ing a restlessness and feeling of reaction among the younger painters,
particularly those in Moscow, to whom the stylization of the domi-
nant graphic style of the 'World of Art' was basically alien. They
protested against the erudition which the 'World of Art' painters
continued to emphasize, even though the battle against the 'Wanderers'
which had provoked this drive for a high standard in the artist had
long been won. Now that the need for a basic cultural education for
themselves and the public was no longer urgent, the younger genera-
tion felt that the 'World of Art' members were pursuing knowledge
for its own sake and had become lost among problems so obscure as
to be irrelevant to all but the most highly cultured. In the first number
of the Golden Fleece the voice of the new generation made its protest:
with the of the eighteenth century but also with that of the early
art
nineteenth century; one must have studied Gainsborough and
Beardsley, Levitsky [the Russian eighteenth-century portrait
painter, 1 73 5-1 822] and Briullov [Russian painter of classical school,
70
*799- 1 $S 2 ]i Velasquez and Manet, and the German woodcuts of
the sixteenth century. But can one create an art capable of
. . .
71
Serov and Korovin. The most prominent among them were Pavel
Kusnetsov, Georgy Yakulov, an Armenian and future Constructivist
designer in the theatre, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, the
Greek Miliuti brothers Nikolai and Vassily, and the Armenian
Martiros Saryan.
The 'Blue Rose' group came together as a distinct entity after the
'Union of Russian Artists' exhibitionof December 1906. This was a
Moscow exhibiting society which had been formed in 1903 and
which came in some measure to replace the 'World of Art'. It did not
identify itself with any particular philosophy or style, but was simply
an organization which arranged annual exhibitions to which anyone
could contribute. Many of the Petersburg 'World of Art' members
did so, and these exhibitions became the obvious centre for the mem-
bers of the Moscow College to show their work. These annual shows
were, however, usually lacking in excitement, since they included
artists of every school. But for the young student and emerging
38
Pavel Kusnetsov,
Holiday
c. 1906
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41 Pavel Kusnetsov, Birthfusion with the mystical force in the atmosphere. The
rousing oj the devil, c. 1906
74
sculptor, Matvccv, took part. Reviewing the exhibition, Sergei
Makovsky, the Symbolist poet and future editor of Apollon, wrote:
'They arc in love with the music of colour and line heralds of the
. . .
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contribute works to the 'World of Art' exhibition of 1906 which has
already been described, and which introduced his work to an
immediately appreciative audience for the first time.
In contrast to Mussatov, Kusnetsov and the other 'Blue Rose'
artists were not haunted by a sense of doom, by pessimism, by a
ment, but the 'Blue Rose', which represents the second generation,
painted subjects essentially connected with life. Maternal Love,
III. 41 Morning, Birth are typical titles of Kusnetsov's works, in which the
figures are emerging as if still drowsy from a deep sleep. Stillness
surrounds them, not the stillness of Mussatov's near-death, but rather
a silence of awe before the mystery of life. As with Mussatov, there
is a pantheistic sense of unity with the elements, but this time it is a
76
43 Pavel Kusnetsov, The Blue Fountain, 1905
77
44 Nikolai Miliuti, Angel of Sorrow, c. 1905
and flood the scene. Thus in Sudeikin's Venice, floating figures glide
along the water's surface, their faces drugged and withdrawn, but
behind them rises a splendid sight of great trees through which light
is gently breaking, hinting, like the windows of a Gothic cathedral,
at infinite light and space beyond. Utkin also allows the rhythms of
water to penetrate his work. Mirage depicts a strange vision of figures
standing at the water's edge, or more accurately, blown up by waves,
whose substance they seem to share. Behind these willowy, swaying
figures rears a monstrous curling wave, a pumpkin cloud of water
78
45 Martiros Saryan, Man with Gazelles, c. 1905
by the same artist entitled Triumph in the Heavens takes us to the brink
of the world; we gaze through a veil of fine, hailing lines at an infinity
of blue. Beyond and around this material fragment, nothingness, one
feels, is waiting.
Beside these frail visions of immateriality in a 'measure lost to man',
III. 211 which recalls the Suprematist White on White series of paintings by
Malevich, the work of the Armenian Saryan is gratefully solid. His
use of paint is sensuous, and his colour bold. But here also there is
///. 43 mystery. Man with Gazelles shows a white figure with a shock of
black hair, leading his flock of gazelles swiftly out into a blank-faced,
white-walled desert city. There is no sky: the squat buildings hug
the spaceless, timeless scene. The Symbolist in Saryan is alsoshown in
his love of water scenes, as for example Fairy Lake. Here two naked
girlsdance to their long white water-shadows in a cloudy lake
enclosed in an ornamental garden, whose sense of seclusion and
protection reminds one of a Persian miniature. In common with the
other members of the 'Blue Rose', Saryan's figures are still hardly
defined forms, rather patches or streaks of bright colour, barely
materialized. It is a de-materialized, primeval, half-born world into
which these artists were plunged and from which they shortly
emerged into one of bold forms and brilliant colour, brimming with
life and movement.
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The 'Golden The first
Fleece' organized three historic exhibitions.
was held in 1908 in Moscow, and included works of both French and
Russian painters. The French paintings were probably selected by
Henri Mercereau and Ryabushinsky, who frequently visited Paris
and would certainly have seen the Salons of the last few years at which
many of the paintings sent to Moscow had been exhibited. In par-
ticular many of the first Fauve works which had created such a furore
at the Salon d'Automne of 1905 reappeared at this first 'Golden Fleece'
82
success in Moscow from this exhibition was Van Dongen whose
riotous colour fired the imagination of the Moscow painters.
The older school of Impressionists, likewise seen for the first time
at this was represented by works by Pissarro and Sisley;
exhibition,
there were a few drawings by Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, whose
influence was soon to be reflected in the work of Goncharova and
Petrov-Vodkin. Early works by Braque and Le Fauconnier were also
seen, and finally the three great Post-Impressionists, Cezanne, Van
Gogh and Gauguin - although in number, and in the importance of
the works exhibited, only Van Gogh equalled the Nabi group
favourites. Van Gogh's five works included Berceuse, Sun in the Trees
and Night Cafe, which was bought by Morosov at the exhibition. It is
interesting to note that neither Morosov nor Shchukin would agree
to lend any of the works from their* collections to these 'Golden Fleece'
exhibitions. When approached, according to Larionov who was one
of the organizers, Shchukin replied that he and Morosov were about
to organize their own exhibition and therefore could not be expected
to lend anything. Such an exhibition, however, never took place.
Ryabushinsky lent several of his fine collection of Rouaults, but of
course he organized and financed the exhibitions himself. David
Burliuk in his reminiscences 21 describes the setting as one of extreme
luxury, with silk hangings as a background to the paintings and
champagne to celebrate the occasion. It is described with some
bitterness, for Burliuk was not included among the painters chosen to
represent the analogous Russian up-and-coming movements, despite
the fact that Larionov and Goncharova, who had taken part in the
provincial 'Wreath' exhibitions organized by the Burliuks in 1907,
were prominent among those who were represented.
The Russian section of this first 'Golden Fleece' exhibition was hung
separately from the French and contained works by some of the
'Blue Rose' group - Kusnetsov, Utkin and Saryan - Ryabushinsky
himself contributing a modest two paintings only - but the painter
who dominated these rooms was Mikhail Larionov. He sent twenty
works of a quasi-Impressionist style, including Spring Landscape, from
the series The Garden, which reflected the influence of Vuillard and
Bonnard. Goncharova also contributed to the exhibition although
on a smaller scale, sending seven works in all, including Bouquet of
Autumn Leaves, 1902-3. Kusnetsov and Saryan's work had become
83
48 Martiros Saryan,
Self-portrait, 1907
up with its life, and its progressive painters were almost all 'School of
Paris'.
84
:
86
noticeable change since the previous show, for things were moving
88
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of rhythm.
Robert Falk, like Petrov-Vodkin, was a student of the Moscow
College, but they hardly overlapped, for Falk came at the age of
seventeen in the year the other artist left for Africa, in 1905. Falk
belonged in fact to a different generation from the 'Blue Rose' group.
He was untouched by their Symbolist feeling and was from the outset
frankly of the Paris School. At first Toulouse-Lautrec, then Matisse,
and last and most profoundly Cezanne, influenced and directed his
work. He became one of the most prominent members of the Moscow
'Knave of Diamonds' group which was founded in 1909 and was to
become the leading movement - for two years - of the Russian
avant-garde. Later he was important as a teacher in the Soviet period
and continued to paint sensitive melancholy portraits and still-lifes up
to his death.
Alone of the 'Blue Rose' and 'Golden Fleece' artists, Saryan and
Kusnetsov continued to be uninfluenced in the direct and almost
slavish way in which their friends had succumbed to the French Post-
Impressionist school, but the direction is ultimately the same. This
second exhibition revealed a more developed primitive element in
the work of both, but it was an Eastern rather than a Western
primitivism, less a conscious stylization for ulterior motives than a
work, the veiled quality has
natural, direct expression. In Kusnetsov's
still withdrawn, they are
almost disappeared; although his figures are
strongly delineated; although the colour is still muted, it is warm;
desert colours, yellows and browns have replaced the Symbolist
91
1
blue-greys. The scenes are more obviously taken from life, and were in
fact drawn in the Kirghiz steppes so beloved by the artist. A third
dimension is also hinted at in the retreating dunes and the slight
warmth of colour in the sky towards the foreground of paintings of
this period., The internal development is thus analogous to the French
movement, and soon there was to be a violent reaction against this
French School, which marked the next phase in the Russian movement.
This was already revealed, in fact, at the end of 1909, when the
'Golden Fleece' held a third exhibition which consisted almost
entirely of the work of Larionov and Goncharova. These two painters
now emerge as the new leaders in Russian painting and a new stage in
the modern movement in Russian art begins.
92
1909-11
of 'pure painting'. The first of this new movement had been the
signs
'Blue Rose' group exhibition and the Golden Fleece magazine with its
sponsorship of French Post-Impressionist and Fauve painting described
in the previous chapter. During the next three years a primitivist
movement arose in Russia and became a conscious style. This style
was based on a cultivation of folk-art, and a synthesis of current
European schools. Its chief exponents were the painters Larionov and
Goncharova.
During these three years which mark the emergence of this new
school in Russian painting, Moscow became a meeting-place for the
most revolutionary movements in European art. Thus Cubism from
'Kunstlervereinigung' of the future 'Blaue Reiter' move-
Paris, the
ment from Munich and the Futurism of Marinetti had an immediate
impact on the Russian art world.
The relationship between Italian Futurism and the Russian move-
ment of the same name is complex and controversial. It is, for example,
debated when exactly Marinetti first visited Russia: some say that he
came in late 1909 or early 19 10 to Moscow and Saint Petersburg on
his general propaganda tour of European capitals with his newly
announced Futurist ideology. Other Soviet critics, notably Nikolai
1
94
57, 5 8 Gingerbread figures
made in traditional wooden
carved moulds from
Arkhangelsk
60 A nineteenth-century Russian
lubok (peasant woodcut)
illustrating a tale by Knlov
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6 1 Mikhail Larionov, The Soldiers (second version), 1909
Larionov the leader and Goncharova his brilliant pupil are two
personalities of fundamental importance in the history of the modern
movement in Russia. Their work in retrospect lacks the single-
mindedness and logic of the development of Kasimir Malevich and
Vladimir Tatlin, but it played a vital historic role in the Russian
artistic world of the years leading up to 1914, and without it, it is
96
when they left the country as designers for Diaghilev's ballet. It is,
97
!<:,-'
62
Natalia Goncharova,
Madonna and Child,
1905-7
98
63 Early nineteenth-century Russian lubok The Sircti
College time. From now on, the two artists were inseparable
at this
64 Natalia Goncharova,
Study in Ornament,
1913?
99
Goncharova's interest in icon painting was an early development
and was probably influenced directly by the activities of the
Abramtsevo colony, whose members were now successful and
established artists working particularly in the theatre. There were
others among the second generation 'World of Art' painters, such as
Bilibin and Stelletsky, who were also engaged in an attempt to adapt
the Russo-Byzantine tradition to modern pictorial demands. Goncha-
rova's earliest works in this style date from 1903 to 1905, but most of
these works the artist claims to have destroyed. But even in the
///. 62 surviving examples one can discern the characteristic brilliant range
of colour typical of Goncharova's mature works; here also is the rich
ornament and strong linear rhythm which this artist so brilliantly
exploited in her later theatrical designs. This flair for ornament
became almost a scientific investigation for Goncharova, and together
with her use of icon painting as a source of pictorial composition is
her chief independent contribution to the modern movement in
Russia.
Thus one can distinguish two streams in Goncharova's work: her
vigorous and independent research in reviving national traditions, and
her more timid and academic interpretations of the current European
styles. These two streams continued in her work until about 19 10,
when the student discipline based on studies of the work of Vrubel,
Borissov-Mussatov, Brueghel, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Toulouse-
Lautrec and Maurice Denis, to mention but a few, became reconciled
with her experiments in the Russo-Byzantine styles under the impact
of the French Fauves. These works of 1910-12 by Goncharova such
Ills 55, 56 as Dancing Peasants and Hay cutting were, as we shall see, the direct
100
65
Natalia Goncharova,
Flight into Egypt,
1908-9
IOI
with his parents, but then he was provided with his own studio and
flat. From the beginning he worked with phenomenal ease, producing
_-, w
66
Mikhail Larionov,
Evening after the Rain,
1908
67
Mikhail Larionov,
Walk in a Provincial Town,
1907-8
usually described as 'Impressionist' it would, however, be truer to
point to the work of Bonnard and Vuillard as Larionov's inspiration
at this time, especially in works such as The Courtyard or Spring
Landscape. In Fishes, Larionov used a longer stroke reminiscent of /'/. 53
Van Gogh, producing an rhythm on the canvas surface, a
all-over
pictorial unity in which colour and form emerge as entities in their
own right. This influence of Vuillard, Bonnard, Matisse and Picasso
are all work of 1906-7. Individual objects and
evident in Larionov's
geometric perspective are now dismissed. The omission of sky and
the 'close-up' approach to the elements of the composition become a
constant characteristic. Unlike Goncharova and Malevich, Larionov
seldom, even in his later Primitivist work, adopted the colour range
of Russian folk-art but remained faithful to his early muted palette in
which pale and gentle yellows are predominant.
blues, soft greens
Again, unlike Goncharova, Larionov's mood is detached and
restrained, whereas she, one feels, is swept away by her intense
emotion. Goncharova's work hits one with violence, its impact is
immediate; Larionov slyly insinuates his message with a spare but
eloquent line and an extreme modesty of means. She glories in the
sensuous qualities of paint and the eloquence of rhythmic line; he, it
seems, is at pains to de-materialize his material almost in the way that
Malevich strives in his Suprematist works to subordinate paint and
'spiritual' level of communication.
canvas to a purely
Whereas Goncharova's work is highly eclectic - and at its fullest in
104
69
Mikhail Larionov,
Soldier at the Hairdresser,
1909
105
70 Mikhail Larionov, Soldiers (first version), 1908
106
1
109
The Primitivist movement was not simply a development in the
work and activities of Larionov and Goncharova; it might even be
said to spring from the meeting of these two artists with the Burliuk
brothers. This meeting took place in 1907.
David Burliuk and his younger brother Vladimir were the sons of
a wealthy bailiff who at this time was managing the estate of Count
Mordvinov near the Black Sea at a place called Chernianka, or as the
brothers liked to call it in the old Greek version of the name, Hilea.
The two brothers attended the local Kazan school of art in Odessa,
and then left in 1903 to study for two years with Azbe in Munich.
After this they spent a year working in Paris before returning home
to Russia. Their background is therefore fairly similar to that of
Larionov and Goncharova, although their initial training in a
provincial school was of a much lower standard. David Burliuk later
made this good by attending the Moscow College from 191 1 to 191 3,
when he was expelled in company with his close friend and colleague,
Vladimir Mayakovsky.
David Burliuk first came to Moscow in the autumn of 1907, on the
invitation of a Moscow businessman named Shemshunn. Shemshurin
was typical of the many small patrons of art of this time in Russia; he
kept open table to any artist who cared to turn up in his house at
five-thirty in the evening. But woe to those who arrived too late,
for Shemshurin was a man of fanatical punctuality; the doors of his
dining-room were opened to whoever might be in the ante-room at
five-twenty-five and firmly closed again at five-thirty. Many of the
artists of this Primitivist movement who were poor and entirely
no
group, but, more important, Larionov, Goncharova and the Kiev
painter, Alexandra Exter. Soon after David's arrival he and his brother
Vladimir, who had also now come to Moscow, arranged an exhibition
entitled 'Stefanos/Venok' - 'The Wreath' - which brought together
the above-mentioned artists. This little exhibition was important as
the model for many other little group exhibitions which mark the
development of painting in Russia during the next decade up to the
Revolution of 191 7.
The meeting of the Burliuks with these Moscow painters seemed to
give new impetus to the modern movement. The pace of events in
the Russian art world during the next few years is overwhelming; so
much happened, so rapidly, in so many places, that it is difficult to
piece it together so as to make a pattern of the whole. By reducing it
to a pattern, one would miss the truth, for this chaotic confusion is the
background and an intimate part of this story. I have therefore tried
to pick out a few of the more obvious events and discoveries as an
indication of the direction of ideas.
Both David Burliuk and Mikhail Larionov were personalities of
formidable energy and organizing ability. During the brief marriage
of their forces they together attracted all that was most vital in the
current Russian art worlds. Both were large men and gifted with
75 Mikhail Larionov,
Portrait of Vladimir Burliuk,
c. 1908
great physical strength. The Burliuk brothers in particular were
///. 75 enormous young men; Vladimir indeed was a professional wrestler
and always took a twenty-pound pair of dumb-bells around with him
on his journeys in the cause of the new art and literature - it was
David, however, who was made to carry this spectacular equipment,
for Vladimir insisted that it would hurt his muscles.
Shortly after the 'Wreath/Stefanos' exhibition, on the marriage of
their sister Ludmilla, the Burliuks moved to Saint Petersburg. As in
Moscow, they began to collect around them a group of sympathetic
poets, painters and composers. Soon they organized another exhibition,
'The Link', in which they all took part - for everyone in this little
world painted and wrote poetry or music. 'The Link', however, had
little success - none of the established 'Blue Rose' group took part,
77 Vladimir Burliuk,
Portrait of
Benedict Livshits,
191
113
In the autumn of 1908 the Burliuks went to visit Alexandra Exter
in Kiev.Here they organized another exhibition - in the street - which
was a great success. It was almost identical with the one they had
organized together in Petersburg earlier in the year, although a few
of the recent works by those artists within easy reach of Kiev were
included. From the proceeds on paintings sold, the Burliuk brothers
returned to spend the winter in Moscow.
The year 1909 was to prove eventful. It brought together more
114
3
their verse and picture construction differed little from that of the
established Symbolist poets and 'World of Art' painters - only they
blunted, coarsened, simplified and made emphatic the vocabulary of
their predecessors. By thus bringing the language of these 'ivory tower'
creators 'down to reality' - out into the street, into the everyday life
of the common citizen - these artists sought, with the only weapons
115
78 A scene from the film Drama
in Cabaret No. ij, 1914. This
picture shows Larionov, his eyes
painted with green tears and his
hair combed over his face, with
Goncharova in his arms, hair
flowing and with a bawdy face
drawn over her face and breast
they had, to bring about the reconciliation of art and the society which
had dismissed art to its ivory tower. In their antics and public clown-
ing, one can detect an intuitive, naive attempt to restore the artist to his
116
79 A from the film Creation can't be
shot
bought, 8. Standing in the background arc
1 91
David Burliuk and Vladimir Mayakovsky
Larionov in 1916
number of Moscow artists. Kandinsky first met the Burliuks and
for Munich than for Paris, as we have seen with the 'World of Art'
leaders, such as Benois. It is important to remember that Kandinsky
118
to the Paris Salons, and as a result these centres became aware much
sooner than Paris of the work of the Russian avant-garde painters and
architects. The following is a review of the Russian section at an
exhibition of architecture and interior design held in Vienna in 1909:
Mikalojus Ciurlionis,
Sonata of the Stars.
Andante, 1908
'Thisembrace of the Russians with the most extreme left movements
of our Western art', as the above-quoted critic continues, soon led
the Russians to turn their attention to Paris rather than Germany.
The change happened about 1904, with the end of the World of Art
magazine, the beginning of the Morosov and Shchukin collections
of Post-Impressionist painting, and the subsequent 'Golden Fleece'.
By 1906 Russian artists were beginning to attend Paris studios rather
than those of Munich or Vienna, and Paris in its turn became aware of
the Russian School with Diaghilev's exhibition of 1906 at the Salon
d' Automne and was won over to enthusiasm by his ballet productions.
After 1 9 10 the influence of the various schools had become so wide-
spread and intermingled with each other that one can no longer
point to Russia as being a directly imitative home of various move-
ments. It has become a centre in its own right of which the 'Knave
of Diamonds' exhibition was a testimony.
This first exhibition of the 'Knave of Diamonds' is so important
that it is interesting to analyze the works which were sent to it in
detail.
The French works were selected by Alexandre Mercereau. This
French writer and critic had been a regular visitor in the Russian art
world since his appointment as correspondent to the Golden Fleece.
The works which he selected for this exhibition were chiefly those of
Gleizes, Le Fauconnier and Lhote, and in consequence the ideas of
these painters became increasingly familiar and influential in Russia
at this time. Gleizes and Metzinger's work Du Cubisme, which was
translated and published in two editions in Russia a year after its
appearance in France, 9 became, together with the formulae and
writing of Cezanne published by Bernard, the chief texts of the
movement in Russia between 19 10 and 191 4.
Apart from work by these minor Cubists, no other French painters
were represented, although in the following exhibitions of the same
name a number of others were represented, in particular Leger, who
had a great following in Russia. Although the name of Delaunay
appeared in the catalogue to the second 'Knave of Diamonds'
exhibition of 1912, no work of his was actually sent. More pointedly,
Picasso and Matisse sent nothing to this exhibition, but their recent
work was of course well known in Moscow due to the constant
acquisitions of Shchukin and Morosov.
120
12 Natalia Goncharova, The Looking-glass, 1912
The Munich group was well represented at the first 'Knave of
Diamonds' exhibition, which pre-dated the first 'Blaue Reiter' show
by six months. The second 'Knave of Diamonds' exhibition was even
more biased towards the Munich School, and this exhibition was, in
fact, almost identical in its make-up with the 'Blaue Reiter' show
of 1912.
To the first 'Knave of Diamonds' exhibition, Kandinsky and
Yavlensky sent four works each. (Kandinsky sent four Improvisations
- a, b, c, d.) In spite of the common interest in folk-art, the Munich
group was isolated in feeling from the rest of the exhibition, although
some of the Burliuks' work came close to it. It was not until the
second 'Knave of Diamonds' exhibition that the 'Briicke' and 'Blaue
Reiter' groups were fully introduced in Russia, by which time the
chief personalities of the Moscow groups, Larionov and Goncharova,
had become so extreme in their nationalist ideas that they had shaken
off 'Munich decadence' and the 'cheap Orientalism of the Paris
School'. 10
The core of the first 'Knave of Diamonds' exhibition was the work
of four Russian students from the Moscow College who had been
expelled from the school in 1909 for 'leftism'. The four were Aristarkh
Lentulov (1 878-1943), Piotr Konchalovsky (1 876-1956), Robert
exhibiting society.
Lentulov has already been mentioned in connection with the Bur-
liuk brothers. He had exhibited with them and Larionov and Gon-
charova at all the little provincial exhibitions of the past three years : it
122
83 Hya Mashkov,
Portrait ofE. I. Kirkalda,
1910
colour in the Golden Fleece of 1909. There is the same use of a thick
line to delineate the forms; brilliant, highly unnaturalistic colour, in
particular in the flesh tones; and a highly ornate silhouette in the
hair-styles of the two ladies. The curious juxtaposition of the entirely
two-dimensional Chinese painting as a background to the three-
dimensional seated figure emphasizes the inconsistency of the formal
123
84 Hya Mashkov, Portrait of a Boy in an Embroidered Shirt, 1909
5
126
as earlier works of 1906 and 1907. The Soldiers, second version, was ///. 61
one of the most recent works ineluded. This painting eontains a
number of elements which were developed by Larionov in the follow-
ing year: the primitive smooth-backed animal chalked on the fence,
graffiti-style; the crude-featured figures in positions depicted with a
complete disregard for, or rather conscious sinning against, the rules
of academic perspective. The strong horizontal movement and the
abrupt cutting off of the work at the top of the fence, eliminating
the sky, has been continued from works of the year before such as
Walk in a Provincial Town, which he also included in this exhibition.
Goncharova sent works which were distinctly nearer to those of
Larionov's Primitivist style. In Fishing the French influence is still ///. 88
noticeable, but it has become far more digested and free than in the
works of the previous year. The scene is now set in Russia and the
themes are taken from Russian peasant agricultural life - such as
Washing the Linen (in the Russian Museum, Leningrad). Four of her
86
Pyotr Konchalovsky,
Portrait of
Georgy Yakulov,
1910
1
religious works were included. Gone are the whites and sickly pinks of
Maurice Denis which had coloured the works of the previous year -
77/. 87 such as Picking Apples, which she had sent to the last 'Golden Fleece'
exhibition. With her confident emancipation from the parent school,
Goncharova launches into a blazoned world of colour.
A newcomer to this exhibition was Kasimir Malevich. Malevich
was not yet an intimate of the Moscow group, although he had arrived
in the city in 1905. He had not contributed to any of the small group
exhibitions and had shown his work only at the big public Salons.
To this exhibition he sent works executed in a Bonnard/Vuillard
style. Though he attracted little notice at this exhibition it is important
as his first contact with Larionov and Goncharova. These three figures
were to become the leading personalities during the next four years
after which, when Larionov and Goncharova had departed with
Diaghilev, Malevich was to take over sole leadership.
It was at the 'Knave of Diamonds' exhibition that the short period
129
and saying: 'Sonny, won't you come and spend Christmas with us
at Chernianka?' There follows a description of the feverish train
journey from Kiev to the Burliuks' estate on the Black Sea, of Burliuk
scribbling verses while walking up and down the carriage quoting
Baudelaire, Verlaine and Mallarme to Livshits, who in his turn
introduced Burliuk to his favourite Rimbaud. The description gives
one a sudden insight into the tempo of this period of frantic activity
in painting, writing and talking. The painting which Vladimir
///. 77 Burliuk did of the poet during this time is one of the few surviving
works by this artist who was killed so prematurely six years later.
It distressed Livshits when he saw how Vladimir would take one
'Vladimir will relay the thick elements of clay and sand with a
thick coat of paint and his landscape will become one with the
earth of Hilea.' 12
CHAPTER II V I
1912-14
consists of' 1
By 19 12, however, Larionov's attitude to 'Munich
decadence' seems to have become as scornful as to the 'lackies of
Paris' - the Cezannists - and he did not repay Kandinsky's compliment
of inviting him to exhibit at the first 'Blaue Reiter' by an invitation
to join in the 'Donkey's Tail' group which held their first exhibition
in Moscow in March 19 12, shortly after the above discussion. The
133
work from Paris, entitled Death. It also included Niko Pirosmanishvili
(1862-19 1 8) the Georgian self-taught sign painter who was taken up
by Larionov and other members of his Futurist circle at this time.
The exhibition was greeted with howls of fury and derision by the
press and the public. As usual with Larionov's enterprises a scandal
was involved: the censor decided that to hang Goncharova's religious
///. 89 works such as The Evangelists at an exhibition entitled the 'Donkey's
Tail' was blasphemous. And so these paintings were confiscated.
The works Larionov showed were largely soldier themes, develop-
ing the series of 1908-10 shown at the 'Knave of Diamonds' exhibition,
executed in the 'Infantile-Primitive' style. Some of these works were
intentionally indecent and blasphemous, but they appear to have been
too sophisticated to trouble the censor.
Goncharova included a number of her new Primitivist works such
Ills 87, 55 as Peasants Picking Apples and Hay cutting based on agricultural themes,
and a series of works described in the catalogue as 'in Chinese,
Byzantine and Futurist styles, in the style of Russian embroidery,
woodcuts, and traditional tray-decoration'.
It is interesting to compare the 'Donkey's Tail' with the simultaneous
134
1
77/. 92 Rayonnism. The first Rayonnist work Glass was exhibited at a one-
day exhibition in the 'Society of Free Esthetics' in 191 1 according to ;
the critic, Nikolai Khardzhev, a work in this style was also included
at the 'Union of Youth' exhibition in December 191 1 It was however .
96 Vladimir Tatlin,
Vendor of Sailors' Contracts,
1910
97 Vladimir Tatlin, The Sailor, 1911-12. Probably a self-portrait
137
Hail to our rayonnist style of painting independent of real forms,
existingand developing according to the laws of painting.
(Rayonnism is a synthesis of Cubism, Futurism and Orphism.)
We declare that copies never existed and recommend painting
from works of the past. We declare that painting is not limited by
time.
We are against the West, vulgarizing our Oriental forms, and
rendering everything valueless. We demand technical mastery. We
are against artistic societies which lead to stagnation. We do 'not
demand attention from the public, but ask it not to demand
attention from us.
is the length, width and thickness of the colour layers. These are
140
3
Larionov's Rayonnist works date from the end of 191 1 up till 1914,
143
io6
Kasimir Malevich,
Woman with Buckets
and a Child,
1910-11
107
Kasimir Malevich,
Taking in the
Harvest, 191
he was vociferous in the cause of art, both in public discussions and in
private pamphlets and manifestoes.
When he was nineteen Malevich entered the Kiev School of Art.
In 1900 he leftand began working on his own. 'Impressionist' is how
these earlyworks were described in Russia, but this is the manner ot
execution rather than the principle of the works, for Malevich from
the outset was not concerned with nature or analyzing his visual
impressions, but with man and his relation to the cosmos.
He came to Moscow in 1905 when he was twenty-seven. His
arrival coincided with the outbreak of the December Revolution in
which, like many
artists, he took a lively interest and was even
145
ironing of the figure against the surface of the painting is an aspect of
that elimination of three-dimensional perspective which Malevich
continued to develop up to his Cubo-Futurist period.
Malevich's first independent works date from 1908. These were
large gouache paintings on peasant rural themes - themes largely
derived from Larionov and Goncharova's 'Agricultural' series which
they had begun exhibiting at the third 'Golden Fleece' exhibition of
Ills 110, 112 1909, and many of his titles such Church and The Wood-
as Peasants in
cutter are identical with theirs. In pictorial construction and manner
of execution these works were particularly inspired by the Matisses
which Shchukin was acquiring at this time: Game of Bowls of 1908;
Nymph and Satyr of 1909, and the famous panels Dance and Music of
77/. 104 1910. For example, Malevich's work The Bather is obviously related
to these works. This 'Peasant' series of gouaches, five of which he
contributed to the second 'Union of Youth' exhibition of spring 191 1,
established Malevich in Larionov's group. This trio, Malevich,
Larionov and Goncharova, formed the spearhead of Larionov's all-
Russian group exhibitions, the 'Donkey's Tail' of March 1912 and
'The Target' of March 191 3.
The twenty-three works which Malevich contributed to the
'Donkey's Tail' included a number of the 'Peasant' gouache series of
77/. 108 1909-10 - such as Man with a Sack and Chiropodist in the Bathroom.
The latter is particularly interesting as an indication of his method of
III. log work, for it is clearly based on Cezanne's The Card Players. This was
a favourite work of Malevich's and one of which he always kept a
reproduction on his wall, although he had probably never seen the
original.
In Chiropodist in the Bathroom, Malevich has taken Cezanne's
painting as a model of pictorial construction, his only variation being
a raising of the viewpoint. In Malevich's painting his three figures
have been arbitrarily fitted into this borrowed pattern. Malevich's
literal modelling on Cezanne is again revealed in an unfinished work
146
io8 Kasimir Malevich, Chiropodist in the Bathroom, 1908-9
space has been almost entirely crowded out. The figures in this huddled
group of scarfed peasant women - reminiscent of the 'crowd-scenes'
in Byzantine icons - have lost any separate identity of form, face or
gesture. Only a cylindrical pattern of shapes emerges, whose solidity
is emphasized here and there by a brilliantly contrasted colour
148
no Kasimir Malevich, Peasants in Church, 1910-11
149
///. Ill Haymaking of 191 1 continues this geometricization of the figure
and relates it to the background. The heads, torsos and haystacks
have been formalized to a broad spade-shape, and further abstracted
by their division into brilliantly contrasting colour-blocks. A centrally
placed foreground figure runs almost the length and breadth of the
picture, dominating the scene; the illusion of a deep perspective
finishing at a high horizon is given by the progressively diminishing
scale of the figures in the background. This sense of distance is
furthered by the criss-crossed ground of broad stripes running against
each other diagonally and horizontally - almost like fields seen from
the air, with this colossal superman suspended above the receding
world of nature.
The touches of naturalism in the sky-line of Haymaking have been
III. 107 completely eliminated in Taking in the Harvest also of 191 1. This was
Malevich's most radical work at the 'Donkey's Tail' exhibition. Here
the whole canvas has been organized in a sustained Cubo-dynamic
in
Kasimir Malevich,
Haymaking,
1911
1 2 1
a Child, Head of a Peasant, Haymaking, Taking in the Harvest, and //;, 107,
The Woodcutter. 1 1
1 12
Kasimir Malevich,
The Woodcutter,
191
H3
Kasimir Malevich,
Woman with Buckets.
Dynamic arrangement,
1912
114
Kasimir Malevich,
Morning in the
Country after the
Rain, 1912-13
1
115 The embroidered end of a towel from North Dvinsk province of Russia.
The motif is known as 'Cavaliers and Ladies'. The influence of folk-art traditions
on Malevich's work of this period was very strong, both directly derived from
such embroidery, or the peasant lubok, or more indirectly through
Goncharova's work of 1909-1
153
3 _
,
saw the latter work when it was exhibited in Moscow in 1912, and
154
Leger's work as a whole was familiar to him through his intensive
reading of periodicals. UEscalier of 19 14 probably conies closest to
Malevich's ideas, and has a number of characteristics in common
with The Knife-Grinder of 19 12, but as the dates indicate, Malevich ///. 157
had reached this point two years before Leger. Whether there is any
ground for thinking that Leger was influenced by Malevich has yet
to be ascertained. If Malevich and Leger share a formal construction
in the dynamic cubic division of pictorial elements in their canvases,
their colour, so important in Malevich's work, is quite unrelated. Up
to his La Femme en Bleu, Leger's colour echoes the monochrome
palette of the Cubists. In this and subsequent works he uses the primary
colours and a brilliant green, with white highlighting to express a
machine-like quality. His manner of execution also differs profoundly
from Malevich at this date - 1909-14 - in his light, spare brush work,
and typically French elegance. Malevich has no elegance: his full,
intense colour is applied in a dense, even rhythm throughout the
canvas surface.
Towards the end of 191 3 the influence of the Synthetic-Cubist
works by Picasso and Braque begins to be reflected in Malevich's
work, leading to a radical change of colour and the abandonment of
Cubo-Futurism. In the manner of Picasso and Braque, small realistic
details arc inserted, such as the man in the bowler hat in Lady on a Tram
of 1913 and the stars on The Guardsman's cap. By 1914 these effects ///. 117
have grown to Surrealist proportions. Enormous letters, making scraps
of words as in An Englishman in Moscow, are accompanied by a ///. 121
completely inconsequential series of objects: a tiny Russian church
biting into an enormous fish which in its turn half obscures the top-
hatted figure of the Englishman - with a motto hanging like an
epaulette at his shoulder, reading 'Riding Club' the exquisitely careful
;
155
3
H7 Kasimir Malevich,
The Guardsman 191 2-1
,
AAAAll
Ills 122-25 To Victory over the Sun, Kruchenikh's Futurist opera, Malevich
traces the beginning of Suprematism. One of the backcloths designed
by Malevich was in fact abstract a white and black square. The other
:
sets for this production were very close in character to the Cubist
///. 1 7 works of 19 1 3-14. As in The Guardsman one can recognize the future
Suprematist element in the trapeze form on the right-hand side, so
in the designs for Victory over the Sun various geometrical elements
were prominently incorporated.
i
hi
122-25 Kasimir Malevich, three backcloth and twelve costume designs for
Victory over the Sun. It was to this production that Malevich ascribed the birth of
Suprematism. As is demonstrated here, one of the backcloths was an entirely
geometrical abstract design. Victory over the Sun was first produced in the Luna
Park Theatre in Petersburg in December 1913
159
23
126 Kasimir Malevich, Black Square, c. 19 13 127 Kasimir Malevich, Black Circle, c. 191
77/. 126 system in 191 3 as he claimed. At what point the actual Black Square
painting was executed it is difficult to ascertain precisely. The fact that
itwas not exhibited until late 191 5 would in no way indicate that
it from that year. As we have seen, Malevich did not always, or
dates
even usually, exhibit his most revolutionary works immediately. His
Cubo-Futurist works were almost all exhibited a year, if not two,
after their completion.
However, if Malevich, as he frequently claimed in his writings,
began Suprematist works in 191 3, then these Dada or 'Non-sense
his
Realist' works and some of the more serious collage works - such as
77/. ug Woman beside an Advertisement Pillar - were done more or less
the historic occasion when all the present and future members of the
abstract painting schools of the years leading up to 1922 first came
together.
160
It was not, however, until December 191 5, at the second exhibition
wish to point out what form to seek in them, but I wish to indicate
that real forms were approached in many cases as the ground for
formless painterly masses from which a painterly picture was created,
quite unrelated to nature.'
Black Square headed the list of works. It is by far the most straight- ///. 126
forward of any of the titles, other works being described as Two-
dimensional painterly masses in a state of movement - or /// a state of
tranquillity; Painterly realism of the footballer - painterly masses in two
dimensions. The fact that Black Square had a title so much simpler than
any of the other works shown at this exhibition is an indication that
it was already well known perhaps from the Victory over the Sun
production.
l6l
129 Kasimir Malevich,
Black Square and Red
Square, c. 1913
132
Kasimir Malevich,
House under
Construction,
1914-15
f
'
\v >-
The works which these titles describe were by contrast the most
pure and simple combinations of geometrical elements. Beginning
with the black square on a white ground, the circle follows, then two ///. 127
identical squares placed symmetrically. Then red is introduced and ///. 129
the black square is pushed up to the left while a smaller red square
moves off on a diagonal axis. This dynamic axis is then seized as a
fundamental. Simple rectangular bars of red and black, then blue and
green pursue this movement. The rectangle shades offinto a trapezium III. 130
the diagonal is repeated on a double axis, then through repetition of an
element in two scales, space is reintroduced. Simple progressions
using these basic geometrical elements then ensue; at first these are
stated in black and white; then red, green and blue are again intro-
duced: the Cubo-Futurist colour scale is again present.
In about 19 16 Malevich began introducing more complex colour- III. 134
tones of brown, pink and mauve; more complex shapes appear: a
cut-out circle, tiny arrow-shapes; more complex relationships,
cutting, repeating, overlaying, shadowing, producing a third
dimension. Soft shapes, almost immaterial, fading forms are typical Ills 133, 135
of these later Suprematist works, and the 'propaganda' element is no 145
165
166
colour has been eliminated, and form in the purest, most de-humanized
shape of the square, has been reduced to the faintest pencilled outline.
Already in 191 5 Malcvich had begun experimenting in three-
dimensional idealized architectural drawings. He called these Planits
or The Contemporary Environment. With the culmination of Suprematist Ills
168
140 Kasimir Malevich, Dynamic Suprematism, 191
169
1
141 Vladimir Tatlin, Hall in the Castle. Design for a backcloth for
Emperor Maximilian and his son Adolf, 191
Among the fifty works which he sent to the 'Donkey's Tail' exhibition
of 191 2 were thirty- four costume designs for the production of
///. 1 41 Emperor Maximilian and his son Adolf, which was staged by the 'Moscow
Literary Circle' in 191 1. Unlike Malevich, Tatlin was soon invited to
contribute to the 'World of Art' exhibitions, and to both the exhibi-
tion of 191 3 and 1 914 he sent designs and models for Glinka's opera
///. 142 Ivan Susanin. This project was not realized, although Tatlin took
immense trouble over its preparation, making three-dimensional
models of each act.
142 Vladimir Tatlin, Wood. Sketch for a backcloth for the opera Ivan
Susanin, 1913
143 Descent from the Cross. Icon of the
Northern School of Russia, 15th century.
The influence of icon-painting was very
strong in Tatlin's early development as a
painter. It was a source he later
returned to towards the end of his life
1
1
144
Vladimir Tatlin,
Composition from a Nude,
1913
The last which Tatlin contributed before he made
exhibitions to
his historicjourney to Berlin and Paris were those of the 'Union of
Youth' and 'Knave of Diamonds' of 191 3, and the second Moscow
exhibition entitled 'Contemporary Painting'. Tatlin seems not to
have been a prolific painter, unlike his contemporaries, Larionov,
Goncharova and Malevich, whose fertility was amazing. Many of the
works sent to these exhibitions were the same, or were minor drawings.
The fact that he earned his living at this time as a sailor was probably
responsible for this, but even later Tatlin worked slowly and painfully.
The most advanced work which he executed before leaving in the
77/. 1 44 autumn of 191 3 for Berlin was the Composition from a Nude, mentioned
above.
It is interesting to compare this work with the Cubo-Futurist
77/. 137 works by Malevich of much the same date. In The Knife-Grinder or
77/. 1 13 Woman with Buckets Malevich has followed Cezanne's dictum - when
he wrote to Bernard 'There are no lines, there is no modelling, there
are only contrasts; when there is richness of colour, then there is
fullness of form.' Tatlin too has modelled his work on this precept,
but his rough, unfinished edges come closer to Cezanne's own tech-
nique than the carefully defined boundaries of Malevich's forms.
Though both artists modelled themselves more on Cezanne than any
other painter, though many circumstances and influences in their
common environment unite these two artists, it would be hard to find
two more diverse. However, Tatlin can be compared with Malevich
in his attitudes to the model for the painting and in this they were both
very Russian: like Malevich, Tatlin is not concerned with the object
or person as an individual entity and both, though in such different
ways, subordinate their figures to a geometric pattern. But if Malevich's
Primitivist series of 1909-10, and his later Cubo-Futurist works,
emphasize the two-dimensional character of his medium, Tatlin is
concerned not with a new pictorial space, but ultimately with real
space. He dissects an object not in order to arrive at a truer visual
representation of the object like the Cubists, but in order to incorporate
real space created through colour and surface play. Colour and canvas
are treated as materials in their own right.
In spiteof the constant rivalry between Tatlin and Malevich -
which several times ended in physical violence - Malevich was the
only one of his Russian colleagues whom Tatlin really seems to have
172
H5 Kasimir Malevich, Yellow Quadrilateral on White, 1916-17
There are also one or two copies of essays by Malevich in this collec-
tion. Tatlin attended Malevich's funeral in Leningrad in 1935,
although he had not seen him for years previously.
Apart from Malevich, the painters whom Tatlin respected were
few. First and foremost he admired Cezanne, whom he knew from
the superb Shchukin and Morosov collections; after Cezanne,
Chistyakov, the Russian nineteenth-century painter and teacher of
the 'Wanderers' (see Chapter I), Picasso and Leger were the only
other artists whom his one-time pupils from the Vkhutein (Higher
Technical Institute, where Tatlin taught in the late 'twenties and early
173
'thirties) can remember
their teacher having spoken of with respect.
But were narrow, they were passionate. For example,
if his interests
174
146, 147 Vladimir Tatlin, Maqucttc of stage set and costume
design for Khlebnikov's play Zan-Gesi, produced by Tatlin
in the Museum of Artistic Culture in 1923
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ip 150 Vladimir Tatlin,
The Bottle, c. 19 13
176
All that remains of Tatlin's early 'Painting Reliefs' and his later
'Relief Constructions' are the indifferent photographs which we
reproduce here and the compositions Old Basmannaya and Construction Ills 1 50-36 ,
Selection of Materials, both of 19 17, which are preserved in the 158, 160
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, and which I was able to study on a
recent visit to the Soviet Union. Any analysis based on reproductions
is bound to be at best inadequate and at worst false. The basic tactile
qualities of these works, and the complexity of the ideas involved make
it a particularly difficult task. For example, the construction of 19 14 III. *54
isreproduced here from the only monograph on Tatlin written by
the contemporary art critic Nikolai Punin entitled Tatlin: against
Cubism, published in 1921. The oblique angle at which this
151 Vladimir Tatlin, Painting Relief, 1913-14 152 Vladimir Tatlin, Painting Relief, 191 3-14
153 Vladimir Tatlin, Relief, 1914 154 Vladimir Tatlin, Painting Relief: Selection of materials, 1914
178
through' - is isolated, and indicated by a wire-grill pinned to the
'bottle-shape'. Glass is smooth and polished as we know by its powers
of of curved polished metal, cone-shaped, the
reflection, so a piece
typical shape of is seen through the grille and
a fat bottle reflection,
bottle-shape. The generous curve, so intimately part of a bottle, is
isolated in a piece of curved polished metal, the tail of which has
already served as the reflection; wittily the isolated curve contrasts by
physical juxtaposition with its pathetic two-dimensional silhouette.
The lesson is further emphasized by the piece of wall-paper: the
illusion of its deep perspective pattern is shown up by its curled and
torn edges. The cylinder-shape, while dominating the foreground,
embraces the other elements whose flat, two-dimensional character
is in this way emphasized. The cylinder form continues its circular
155 Vladimir Tatlin, Board No. 1: Old Bosmannaya, 1916-17 156 Vladimir Tatlin, Relief, 1917
were introduced in Tatlin's next compositions of
'Real' materials
77/. 153 tin, wood, one of these works of 1914 we are
iron, glass, plaster. In
confronted by a simple composition in which each contributing
element has been stripped naked, as it were, and made to play against
the others in its essential qualities to contribute to an entity. A
cylindrical tin (with its label still attached, thereby emphasizing its
this separation of the reality of art from the reality of life that Tatlin
sought to destroy. 'Real materials in real space' was his cry.
These complex constructions of 19 16 were actually attached to the
wall by a wire, but one has the impression that they would be free-
flying but for the technical lack of skill of their author. It is typical -
and the tragedy - of these artists that their ideas were far beyond their
technical capacity. That Tatlin should have devoted the last thirty
years of his life to the design of a glider - which never left the ground -
and that Malevich should have designed Planits for living in is surely
a prophecy of the rocket age. Surely this urge to master space - which
has sprung from Russia - is the rationalization of the urge expressed so
vehemently by these artists.
180
157 Kasimir Malevich, The Knife-Grinder, 1912
181
5
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forms. Tatlin would take baby insects and grow them in boxes; when
they were fully grown he would take them out into a field and watch
them respond to the wind, unfold their wings against it and fly away.
His finished glider looks like a great insect itself, so closely has the
organic structure been interpreted. reported that new experiments
It is
183
5
1914-17
which had decor by Filonov, and will be discussed later. The other
was Victory over the Sun, a Futurist opera with music by Matiushin and Ills 1 22-23
a non-sense libretto by Kruchenikh. The sets and costumes were by
Malevich. Both of these were produced in the Luna Park Theatre in
Petersburg on consecutive evenings in December 191 3. After this,
the Cubo-Futurist marriage of the poets and painters broke up and
they proceeded to develop their own discoveries and experience in
their own media.
It was during these next four years that a school of abstract painting
developed and became dominant in the Russian modern movement,
arid gave birth to a number of minor schools. It was headed by
Malevich, who was the leading personality in this war-time avant-
garde, succeeding Larionov and Goncharova, who had left the country
in 191 5 to join Diaghilev.
From the beginning of the century Russia had been a centre of a
continuous meeting and exchange of ideas from all over Europe.
With the outbreak of the First World War in 19 14 she was thrown
back on her own resources. During this period of enforced isolation,
which was to last throughout the war and ensuing Revolutionary
period until the break in the blockade in 1 92 1 Moscow and Petrograd,
,
185
mm H
a.y
162 Pavel Filonov,
Man and Woman, 19 12
exchange of ideas with the outside world again became possible in the
early 'twenties, these two unknown movements made a tremendous
impact on post-war Western Europe. Ideas from all over Europe met
in Germany, particularly in Berlin, and it was here that a synthesis, in
which the Russian contribution was so notable, was created. In
particular in the development of the international functional style of
architecture and design, the ideas of the Russian Suprematist and
Constructivist movements were of fundamental importance.
Yet in many ways the mood in war-time Russia, reflected in
Futurism and Non-sense Realism, resembled the German Dada
movement. There was the same feeling of uselessness, the same sense
of victimization in a hostile, senseless world. The ludicrous masks that
the Futurists wore or painted on their faces - in Victory over the Sun1
the actors wore papier-mache heads half as tall again as their bodies,
and performed on a narrow strip of stage using marionette gestures to
accompany their non-sense' words - the guy-like costume they
186
adopted, the undignified public brawls and vociferous street language
of their paintings and poetry, all these typical Russian Futurist traits
indicate a Dada-like rejection of reality, a bitter mocking of themselves
as useless misfits in a decadent society. This mood was essentially non-
creative, negative, passive. The paintings produced were works such
as Malevich's An Englishman in Moscow, or Pavel Filonov's Man and ///. 121
Woman. Filonov was closer to the analogous German movement ///. 162
than any other painter in Russia at this date, and in such a work as
People - Fishes anticipated the Surrealists. III. 163
There was extraordinarily little Expressionist painting in Russia,
unless one includes a few paintings by Larionov and Goncharova and
the work of Marc Chagall. Neither Chagall nor Filonov was typical
of the Russian artistic world of their time; in Chagall this difference
can be explained by his Jewish birth and his Paris schooling. His
interest in the 'lubok' he shares of course with Larionov and the
Moscow Primitivists, and he did actually contribute to most of
Larionov's exhibitions during the years 1911 to 1914 when he was in
Paris, thus remaining in contact with the art world of his native
country. When he returned to Russia at the outbreak of war, he was
drawn not into the circle of the Moscow Cubo-Futurists, but rather
the group of Jewish graphic artists centred in Kiev, Odessa and his
native town of Vitebsk. His work of this time does, however, reflect
I I
1 64 Liubov Popova, Italian Still-Life, 19 14
the current abstract schools in Russia, although always remaining
representational -
for which 'old-fashionedness' Malevich so ruth-
lessly him (see Chapter VIII). Immediately after the
dismissed
Revolution, some charming children's books, ranking among the
first typographical experiments of 'modern' design and layout, were
produced by this circle, which included El Lissitzky. ///. 167
Filonov was, however, a different case. Born in Moscow in 1883
and left an orphan in 1896, he went to live in Saint Petersburg. He had
begun drawing at an early age, but did not pass the examination for
the Academy of Art in 1902, when he first tried. However, a generous
academician taught him privately for five years. In 1908 he entered
the Academy at last, but had a disturbed career, being expelled after
two years, and then reaccepted. In 19 10 he finally left the Academy
and became a foundation-member of the 'Union of Youth' Russian
190
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168 Marc Chagall, designs for friezes for The State Jewish Theatre in Moscow,
1919-20
V 3
69 El Lissitzky, Proun gg, c. 1924
impression of watercolour from many of his oil-paintings, so fine and
light are his brushstrokes. This fantastic technique was obtained
through a fanatical devotion to his work - he would work eighteen
hours a day on his paintings, which were minutely worked out in
detail before being started on the monumental finished scale. Filonov's
work can be related more to Paul Klce than to any other contemporary
artist. There is the same interest in children's art and in the art of the
insane; in both artists' work one's eye wanders among the various
events withm the frame; like a story or a journey,
one gradually
discovers the and meaning in pictures which have no
pattern
immediate formal unity. There is little likelihood of any actual link
between these artists, however, for Klee did not send to any of
the Russian exhibitions to which the older 'Blaue Reiter' and
'Die Briicke' members contributed; Filonov read little and never
left his country. He lived as he died, in circumstances of great
193
5
Puni and his wife Bogoslavskaya had rapidly made contact with
Malevich and his friends on their return from Paris in 19 14, and were
among his earliest followers in Suprematism.
194
This exhibition again brought Malevich and Tatlin together. They
had met - like so many others in this world - through Larionov's
first
exhibitions. But it was at this exhibition that they emerged for the
first time as the leaders of two distinct schools.
196
173
Liubov Popova,
The Traveller,
191
are used abstractly they do not exist in their own right as in Larionov's
;
works, nor are they labels torn off the object as in Picasso's work, in
order to analyze the object physically, but as in Picasso's late Cubist
197
174 Olga Rosanova,
Geography, 1914-15
198
Russia. Although this is an analysis of the movement of man and
a machine, there is again no attempt to represent speed. The man and
the machine of a series of arrested gestures; they
are the representation
trace the pattern of of movements in space and time from
a scries
different points of view. Again, it is not the machine which dominates
the man, but the reverse. The machine is not idealized - it is indeed an
extremely primitive machine. Malevich is, it seems, preoccupied with
the idea of the new man which emerges from machine-power: a
super-man, man-become-machine. There is no subjective emotion
such as we find in the work of Severini; the lines of the movement arc
not continued into space as with Boccioni. It is an internal compulsion
'devouring the green world of flesh and bones', as Malevich expressed
his fundamental hostility to nature; it is an order-creating force in a
world of chaos; the moment of transformation of man dominated by
nature, to man the victor over his age-old enemy. Pressed within the
175
Liubov Popova,
The Violin,
1914
;
frame, the twisted figure is pushed flat against the surface of the canvas
the ruthless intensity of the cosmic forces which seem to be driving
the man's transformation arc given pictorial expression in the sharply
contrasted tones and shapes: the curve against the straight, the black
against white, flesh becoming steel. The man, urged into this new
substance and rhythm, is propelled into new, unknown gestures. This
machine rhythm is continued in the stairs in the background where,
like a piston, the banister is cut short.
Man - if he is physically involved at all - is the master of the
machine. It is not a case of man becoming willy-nilly displaced by
this new centre of power in the world, as with the Italian movement,
but rather of man become a demi-god, a new weapon to his hand for
'seizing the world from the hands of nature to build a new world
belonging to himself'. 2 For to the Russian artists, nature is a force
hostile to man - again in Malevich's words: 'Nature created her own
landscape ... in contrast to the form of man. The canvas of a creator-
painter is where he builds a world of his own intuition.' 3 Thus
a place
for the Russian, the machine came as a liberating force, liberating man
from the tyranny of nature and giving him the possibility to create an
entirely man-made world, of which he will finally be the master.
This vision of the machine as a liberating force was one of the reasons
for the joyful welcome given to the Bolshevik regime a few years
later - a regime which promised a new world, a new society trans-
formed by the machine, by industrialization. This romanticization of
the machine lies at the basis of all these 'isms' in art and literature which
identified themselves with the Revolution, and in particular in the
aesthetic of Constructivism.
As so often in the history of the modern movement in Russia it
was in the theatre that Russian Futurism met with its most complete
expression, Alexandra Exter's work was the pioneer force in this field.
She was commissioned in 1916 by the progressive producer Tairov,
the founder of the Moscow Kamerny Theatre in 1914, to execute
setsand costumes for a play by Annensky entitled Famira Kifared,
which was a brilliant success. During the next few years Tairov and
Exter worked out a system of 'Synthetic Theatre' 4 in which the set,
costume, actor and gesture were to be integrated to form a dynamic
III. 242 whole. These Kamerny Theatre productions were among the most
important artistic events of the war-time and early Revolutionary
200
177 Alexandra Extcr,
c. 1916
City-scape,
178 Liubov Popova, Painting Relief, 19 16
period: in them one can see the gradual development of ideas from
Futurism to Constructivism, for both movements were either worked
out in, or almost immediately adapted to, the theatre. Thus in 1920,
when the movement had barely emerged, Yakulov designed Con-
structivist sets for Tairov's production of Princess Brambilla, and in the
same year Alexander Vesnin, another founder-member of the
Constructivist movement, designed the sets for the Kamerny Theatre
production of Claudel's V
Annonce faite a Marie, and two years later
of Racine's Phedre. This association of the Futurists-become-
Constructivists with the Kamerny Theatre continued throughout the
1920s with the co-operation of the first generation of Soviet-trained
artists of the 'Obmokhu' group - the Stenberg brothers and
202
179
Luibov Popova,
Architectonic
Composition, 19 17
designed by me.' 5
Another newcomer to the artistic scene who exhibited at this
204
206
and allow the show to open: Tatlin, Udaltsova and Popova were
to hang their works in one room, and Malevich with his Suprematist
followers in the other. To make the difference clear, Tatlin stuck up a
notice over the door to his room which read 'Exhibition of Professional
Painters'.
Tatlin showed twelve works, one Painting Relief of 19 14, five of
191 5, and five new suspended 5. This was
Corner Counter-Reliefs of 191
the time that the latter works had been exhibited.
first
Ills 126-28 that the first Square, Circle and Cross had been painted in 191 3, for it
is difficult to imagine that these works were completed in under two
Black Trapezium and Red Square can be identified in the general view
of one wall of the exhibition. In this work the more complex trapezium
shape has made its appearance and a third spatial dimension has been
introduced by the method of progressive diminution. This work also
obviously belongs to a considerably later period in its use of non-
primary colours; the early Suprematist paintings had used only
primary colours, but in the later works Malevich tended more and
more to avoid them as his shapes became more nebulous.
After the exhibition, in a typically Futurist way, Malevich, with his
new Suprematist followers, Puni, Menkov and Kliun, held an open
discussion on Suprematism in the Tenisheva School of Decorative
Arts in Petrograd. The lecture was advertised as 'On the movements
reflected in the exhibition "0.10" and on Cubism and Futurism'.
Malevich was billed to give a live demonstration of Cubist painting,
which was reported a great success, rather more so than his explanations
208
of his new painting. 6 Perhaps it was for this lecture that Malcvich
arrived at the term 'Suprematism' to describe his new work, for the
name is already used by the critics in the reviews.
If the public and critics remained scornful and indignant at his
During the next two years before the outbreak of the Revolution,
the younger artists pursued, in a more or less ruthless fashion according
to their temperaments, the paths discovered by Malevich and Tatlin.
A number of minor exhibitions held during this period give an idea
of this development which seems to have been so little interrupted by
the war, as a few years later they continued their ideas, impervious to
the harshest physical conditions.
Kandinsky did not contribute to the two Petrograd exhibitions
which I have described here, but remained quietly working in
i8 5
Alexander Rodchenko,
The Dancer, 19 14
this time, the 'Cezannists' (of the 'Knave of Diamonds') and Nathan
Altman, a recently returned emigre working in a Cubist style. The
backbone of this rather unexciting exhibition were the new abstract
compositions by Rosanova, which were very Futurist in feeling, sharp
pointed forms organized in dashing dynamic combinations - with
such titles as Composition of Shining Objects. They were executed in
white, grey and black, which emphasized their formal energy.
With Tatlin's exhibition 'The Store' in 1916, a new figure was
introduced to this little world, who was shortly to become one of its
most energetic personalities in the Constructivist movement. This
was Alexander Rodchenko. Rodchenko was born in Saint Petersburg
in 1 891. He was the son of a theatre-accessories craftsman and a
laundress. The Rodchenko family was of very simple origin; they
were first-generation townspeople whose forefathers had. been serfs.
Mikhail Rodchenko, Alexander's father, was a very skilled craftsman,
and he passed on this gift to his son, who drew from a very early age,
a faculty naturally encouraged in the atmosphere of the theatre in
which he grew up. Rodchenko's earliest known drawings are for the
theatre and were executed while he was still attending his local art
school, the Kazan School of Art, in Odessa. He left this in 1914
before receiving his diploma and hastened to Moscow. There hejoined
the Stroganov School of Applied Art, but his intolerance of the
academic life soon drove him to leave. Already by the end of 191 4 he
had begun experimenting with pencil and compass drawings. The
earliest of these were still representational - for example, The Dancer. III. 183
This ingenious imitation of the Italian-cum-Malevich school of
Futurism was then succeeded by entirely abstract designs. Whereas
211
9
1 88 Alexander Rodchenko,
Composition, 191
212
214
nature apathetic. However, such were the antics they witnessed that
it hard to imagine that they could have remained uninvolved -
is
217
regular end to a successful Futurist entertainment. Roaring Futurist
poets declaiming their latest 'Non-sense' verses, demonstrating and
disputing painters proclaiming their rival manifestoes, the tiny stage
loaded with miming giant puppet-figures, figures performing Greek
classics in jeans or cardboard costume, strutting and gesturing in
geometric movements in the latest 'Non-sense' play such as
Kruchenikh's Gli-GH, would bombard the senses of the audience from
every side. When the Revolution came in October of this same year,
these artists stopped at nothing to realize their wildly ambitious plans
of a new world transformed to the likeness of their dreams.
1917-21
In October 191 7 came the Revolution. To the artists this was the
signal for the extermination of the hated old order and the introduc-
tion of a new one based on industrialization. As Futurists they could
not but respond to the appeal of such a regime which announced the
advent not only of a communal way of life in which the artist would
be an integrated member of society, but also one which was based on
industrialization. 'Let us seize [the world] from the hands of nature
and build a new world belonging to [man] himself,' Malevich 1
expressed it 4 - that they took into their own hands the active re-
organization of the artistic life of the country. Now, they announced,
was not the time for idle picture painting - a square of canvas is, after
all, a feeble and irrelevant means of communication (with odious
associations with the bourgeois system) when the streets are yours to
paint, the squares and bridges the obvious arena of activity. 'We do
not need a dead mausoleum of art where dead works are worshipped,
but a living factory of the human spirit - in the streets, in the tramways,
in the factories, workshops and workers' home.' 5 Thus spoke
219
Mayakovsky at a discussion 'for the wide working masses' held in the
requisitioned Winter Palace in November 191 8. This open discussion
was organized by the 'Department of Fine Arts of the Commissariat
for the People's Education' - known as IZO Narkompros. (These
abbreviated titles were typical of this period; there are so many of
them and they are so alike that it is often difficult for the historian to
identify them. So quickly was one organization succeeded by another,
and so numerous were these bodies, that often people who themselves
took part in these historic events, are at a loss to explain a sequence or
recognize a name-tag.) The theme of this discussion was 'A sanctuary
or a factory?' It is reported that the discussion, the fourth of its kind,
was a huge success with the audience. Apart from Mayakovsky, Osip
Brik and Nikolai Punin, the champion of Tatlin, spoke. Punin
described the place of art in society during the Middle Ages in Europe
and urged a return to these relations. The artist must cease to be the
victim, and his art an object of worship. Already we have the 'culture
of materials' which points the way to the new proletarian art an :
entirely new era in art must begin. 'The proletariat will create new
houses, new streets, new objects of everyday life. . Art of the
. .
proletariat is not a holy shrine where things are lazily regarded, but
work, a factory which produces new artistic things.' 6
The intuitive need of these artists to be active builders, first indi-
cated in Tatlin's constructions in 'real materials and real space',
was now to be given an opportunity to be expressed. Leaving
their painting - 'speculative activity' - and their paint and brushes
- 'useless and outmoded tools' - they joyfully plunged into the
experiment, blissfully regardless of the physical and practical sacrifices
involved. Most of their fellow-citizens were entirely absorbed in the
day-to-day bitter struggle for survival, but these artists, one feels on
reading their manifestoes and descriptions of their discussions and
activities, were hardly living in this grim present. It is difficult to
believe that they were almost literally starving - with the chaos in the
countryside leading to monstrous difficulties in transportation, living
220
first time in history that it young a group of
has been given to so
artists to realize their on such a scale.
vision in practical terms
In the four short years allowed them, known as the period of 'heroic
Communism', these few artists succeeded in setting up museums of
their art all over the country and reorganizing the art schools according
to a programme based on their recent discoveries in abstract painting.
They took charge of the decoration of the streets for the First of May
and October Revolution anniversary celebrations; they organized
streetpageants depicting the Revolutionary take-over involving
thousands of citizens - a novel and highly successful method of
identifying a people with a cause; in the same spirit they organized
dramatic 'mock' tribunals in the public streets to instil the elements of
Soviet justice, or to bring to heel any other 'enemy of the people'; in
the same way rudimentary education was given in, for example, the
laws of hygiene; how to rear chickens, or plant corn, or the correct
way to breathe, were the subjects of some of these pageants and poster
propaganda efforts. The whole man, the healthy worker of the new
society, was a common ideal to both the artist and the Communist
regime.
One of the biggest of the public demonstrations to be so organized
was the first anniversary of the October Revolution. All over the
221
I97- J 99 Nathan Altman's designs
for decorating the great square
in front of the Winter Palace in
Petrograd, for the celebration of the
first anniversary of the October
Revolution of 1917
IM
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224
vaguely 'Cubist' or 'Futurist' style, insulted the citizens by their
'distortion' of much-loved faces. Sherwood's Cubist portrait ot
Bakunin could not be unboarded for days, because of such feeling
against it - when it was, it was demolished in a matter of hours by
anarchists
The only monument whose style matched its subject was Tatlin's
dynamic Monument to the Illrd International. It was early in 19 19 that ///. 203
the Department of Fine Arts commissioned him to execute this
project which was to be erected in the centre of Moscow. During
1919 and 1920 he worked on it and built models in metal and wood
with three assistants in his studio in Moscow. One of these was
exhibited at the Exhibition of the VHIth Congress of the Soviets held
in December 1920. 'A union of purely artistic forms (painting,
sculpture and architecture) for a utilitarian purpose' was how Tatlin
11
described it.
'Least of all must you stand or sit in this building, you must be
mechanically transported up, down, carried along willy-nilly; in
front of you will flash the firm, laconic phrases of an announcer-
agitator, further on the latest news, decree, decision, the latest
invention will be announced creation, only creation.' 12
. . .
226
203 Vladimir Tatlin, Monument to the Illrd International, 1919-20
dismissing the easel painting as an anachronism both in its tools and
its social connotations, they were not equipped to become the artist-
engineers of which they dreamed.
The Department of Fine Arts (izo) was created in 191 8 under the
Commissariat for People's Education (Narkompros). It was respons-
ible for the organization and running of the artistic life of the country
under the new Soviet government. It was through their domination
of this institution that the 'leftist' artists came to be called the official
artists of the new society. Lunacharsky, the Commissar of Education,
was a man of liberal outlook and broad culture. Before the Revolution
when he had been living in exile he had known a number of his
countrymen who had been studying art abroad in Paris, Munich or
Berlin. Among these was his great friend David Shterenberg. He also
knew Nathan Altman and was aware of Kandinsky's reputation in
206
Alexander Rodchenko,
Hanging Construction,
,-.- 1920
8
during the reign of bourgeois taste and who are therefore not repre-
sented in our galleries.' 15 With this chain of galleries, Russia became
the first country in the world to exhibit abstract art officially and on
such a wide scale.
Rodchenko was the Director of the Museum Bureau. Although it
was the Museum 'Kollegia' which actually selected the works, it was
Rodchenko's job to decide to which towns the works should be
allocated. Perhaps he was not quite the impartial arbiter that he might
have been. Gabo tells the story that Kandinsky - a member of the
Museum Kollegia - approached him one day to warn him that
Rodchenko was proposing to send Gabo's composition A Head to a
230
tiny village Tsarevokokshaisk in the depths of Siberia. The indignant
Gabo withdrew work immediately, to the fury of Rodchenko!
his
Thirteen of these new galleries were entitled 'Museums of Artistic
Culture', a name based on Tatlin's 'Culture of materials'. The idea of
such a museum and its organization was put forward by Nikolai
Punin, an editor of the influential 'leftist' organ Iskusstvo Kommuni
(Art of the Commune), a weekly paper which ran from 191 8 to 1919,
and great friend and champion of Tatlin. The Museum of Artistic
Culture was to be devoted entirely to artistic education 'to enable
people to become familiar with the development and methods of
artistic creation'. 16 In addition, there was to be an 'Historical Museum'
government. The school broke away and for a short time existed as
an autonomous body. In October of the same year, however, it was
re-formed under izo as the Petrograd Free Studios (Svomas). The
programme of the re-formed school announced:
1 All those wishing to receive specialist art training have the right
to enter Svomas.
2. This applies to those over the age of 16. No kind of diploma of
education is demanded.
3. All those who previously belonged to art schools are considered
members of Svomas.
4. Applications will be accepted all the year round.
231
207 Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, igi8 in Petrograd, 1920
2}2
Architecture, Ceramics, Metalwork and Woodwork, Textile and
Typography) but general discussions were held and seminars
conducted amongst the students on diverse problems where the
public could participate, and artists not officially on the faculty
could speak and give lessons. It had an audience of several thousand
students, although a shifting one due to the civil war and the war
with Poland. There was a free exchange between workshops and
also the private studios such as mine. During these seminars as
. . .
Among those who had studios here were Malevich, Tatlin, Kandinsky,
Rosanova, Pevsner, Morgunov, Udaltsova, Kusnetsov, Falk and
Favorsky. The latter artist was an engraver who later had a great ///. 208
influence on the first generation of Vkhutemas painting students, such
as Deineka and Pimenov, which arose as a reaction to the abstract III. 213
schools in the early 'twenties.
The programme of the 'leftist' professors in the Vkhutemas was
dictated by the Institute of Artistic Culture, an organization entirely
approached by:
1 Combination of primary colours with simple geometric forms.
2. Combination of complementary colours in similar forms.
234
The second part of the programme was to be devoted to the creation
of monumental art. 'This would be most conveniently worked out
where the qualities of individual artistic media arc to be
in the theatre
worked out, e.g. words or movement can be reduced to their basic by
means of repetition, combination, etc., until a state of ecstasy is
induced.' Scriabin's work was quoted as an example of parallel
streams of colour and sound.
These ideas, which were shortly afterwards to form the basis of
Kandinsky's Bauhaus course, met with strong opposition on the part
of the future Constructivists in Inkhuk. Engrossed with a rationalist
conception of artistic creation, Kandinsky's ideas of art as a psychic,
intuitiveprocess were anathema to them. And so Kandinsky's
programme was almost immediately turned down by a majority vote.
As a result ideas, Kandinsky left Inkhuk. At
of this dismissal of his
the end of the year he was invited by Lunacharsky to become a
member of the Praesidium which was to reorganize the various
educational and artistic institutions in Moscow as an Academy of
Sciences. This was in accordance with Lenin's New Economic Policy,
introduced in 1921, and formed part of Lunacharsky 's scheme for the
reorganization of the educational system of the country.
Kandinsky was destined never to see any of his programmes for art
education put into practice in his native country. The one that he
worked out for the new Department of Fine Arts in the Academy of
Sciences was similar to that which he had proposed to Inkhuk, 22 but
the authorities were occupied with acute problems of lack of food,
fuel and living space, and it was shelved.
The Department of Fine Arts in the new Moscow Academy was
not organized until 1922. By this time Kandinsky had left Russia to
take up the post offered him in the Weimar Bauhaus.
With Kandinsky's departure from Inkhuk a new programme was
worked out. After much discussion, 'pure painting' was dismissed by
everybody, but the members of the Institute were divided on the next
step to be taken and therefore divided themselves into two groups.
The members of the first group were to devote themselves to
'laboratory art', those of the second to 'production art'. This division
was to become more and more marked until it led to the dramatic
split in the ranks of these 'leftists' in 1921.
235
5
236
210
Naum Gabo,
Head of a Woman,
1916-17
Anton Pevsner (i 886-1962) began to paint in 1902, having dis-
covered and become fascinated by Byzantine art. In 1910 he went to
Saint Petersburg and entered the Academy of Art, but the following
year left for Paris, where he remained, except for a brief return to
Russia in 191 3, until the outbreak of war. While staying in Oslo
during the war, Pevsner continued to paint Cubist works such as
Camaval, to which the early Heads of Gabo, his brother, produced ///. 20Q
in 191 5 and 1916, bear a close relation. It was not until after the brothers
had left Russia, early in 1922, that Pevsner began working on con-
structions. He and Gabo have continued to follow the theories which
they evolved when still in Russia; their work, like so much in the
history of the modern movement in Russian art, was introduced most
dramatically to the West by Diaghilev in their designs for his ballet
La Chatte (1926). Gabo and Pevsner belonged to the anti-production-
art group in Inkhuk; to express their opposition to these future
Constructivists they wrote their Realistic Manifesto. 23
Pevsner's younger brother Naum (born 1890), who later took his
middle name Gabo in order to avoid confusion with his brother, had
spent the war years in Oslo, where he had begun working on his first
constructions in such materials as sheet-metal and celluloid. Gabo did
not attend an art school, but after taking his university degree in
medicine in Munich in 1912, he began an engineering course and also
attended Wolfflin's lectures on the history of art. It was while working
out mathematical problems that he first began to make constructions -
his first works being cubes and geometrical figures. After his elder
brother's arrival in Oslo, and probably under his influence, he began
(19 1 6-1 7) doing representational constructions with titles such as
Head or Torso. In 191 7 he returned to Moscow and produced some ///. 210
architectural designs such as Project for a Radio Station, not unlike the ///. 204
experiments of the future Constructivists. In particular Gabo shares
with them an interest in the dynamic principle. Unlike his brother
Anton, Gabo did not take part in any exhibition while in Russia and
held no official position in the Vkhutemas. However, as he says:
'Unofficially I was as active in the life of the school as if I had an
official appointment . .my brother Anton Pevsner had a studio
.
there teaching painting, but any of his students who wanted to learn
sculpture were my students. 24
. .
.'
239
Exhibition' was eventually succeeded by the 'Tenth State Exhibition:
Abstract Creation and Suprematism'. This was the culminating point
of abstract painting in Russia and unlike the previous show was
limited to the kernel of the 'laboratory art' group. Malevich sent his
240
-had his own way, and the highly disgruntled Chagall left for Moscow,
where he began working as a scenic designer for The State Jewish ///. 168
Theatre. One of works, sadly now destroyed, was his
his greatest
decoration of this theatre's vestibule with a great frieze.
It was in Vitebsk that Lissitzky, who had been working with
241
2ii Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition : White on White, 1918
242
212 Alexander Rodchenko, Black on Black, 191
243
-:
CHAPTER EIGHT
1921-22
The artistic administration of the country during the first four years
own "class" art in order to organize its forces in the struggle for
socialism.' 1 The chief theorist of the Proletcult movement was
Bogdanov, a Marxist who had
always quarrelled with Lenin on the
tenet, basic to the Proletcult movement, that there are three indepen-
dent roads to Socialism: the economic, the political and the cultural.
244
On thistheory Bogdanov proclaimed the Proletcult to be an autono-
mous body, independent of the Party; Lenin, on the other hand, held
that all organizations should be under the central Party administration.
This conflict soon came to a head, and in October 1920 Lenin took
Lunacharsky to task for supporting the Proletcult's claim to be the
'true representatives of Proletarian culture'; December he ordered
in
the Proletcult to submit to the authority of Narkompros. 2 It is
reported that Lenin said that such a monopoly by one school to the
title of official Proletarian art was both ideologically and practically
harmful. 3 However, the idea of a separate Proletarian culture persisted
into the 'thirties and is now embodied in the official aesthetic of
Socialist Realism. 4 This fierce rivalry for the titleof 'Proletarian
artist' was a feature not only of the first four years of the Soviet
regime, but continued throughout the 'twenties until 1932 when
'Socialist Realism' was' announced as the one official style, and all
artistic organizations were brought under one central body, the
'Union of Artists'.
Immediately after the Revolution, the Proletcult set about putting
into practice its long-prepared system. From the beginning there was
a natural interest in uniting art and industry, since as the Proletcult
was basically concerned with creating a mass-culture, industry was
the natural starting-point for its activities. In August 1918 a Proletcult
'Art-Production sub-section' was formed on the lines of a programme
drawn up by Olga Rosanova, who thereupon became head of this
department until she died in November 191 8.
In 1922, due to a combination of forces, most of the artists in
Inkhuk who were moving towards Constructivism became members
of the Proletcult. The partial return of the capitalist system introduced
under Lenin's New Economic Policy brought to an end the 'dictator-
ship' which these artists had enjoyed during the four years of 'heroic
Communism'. Under nep a new bourgeoisie arose which was soon in
a position to patronize the arts, unlike the penniless government, and
naturally enough this new art patron inclined towards a familiar
form, 'pre-Revolutionary' in every sense of the term. This return of
the old enemy to power disgusted the 'leftist' artists, but it also meant
that they had to look for other means of support, and industry was the
obvious solution. However, this turning to industry was also a logical
step in the internal development of ideas in Inkhuk, of the gradual
245
-8
dismissal of easel painting and 'pure art' towards the idea of Con-
structivism and 'production art'.
From the outset there was a division among the Institute's members
which became more and more pronounced as the year 1920 lengthened
into 1921.
On the one side stood Malevich, Kandinsky and the Pevsner
brothers. They argued was essentially a spiritual activity, that
that art
its business was man's vision of the world. To organize life
to order
practically as an artist-engineer, they claimed, was to descend to the
level of a craftsman, and a primitive one at that. Art, they claimed, is
inevitably, by its very nature, useless, superfluous, over and above
workmanlike functional design. In becoming useful, art ceases to
exist. In becoming a utilitarian designer, the artist ceases to provide the
246
source for new design. Malevich in particular felt that industrial
design was necessarily dependent on abstract creation, that it was a
213
Yury Pimenov,
Give to Heavy
Industry, 1927
:
crafts as the source of life, but by utilizing and welcoming the machine.
The machine as the source of power in the modern world would
release man from labour, transforming it into art. Are not the artist
and the engineer united by the process of work? The work-process in
art and industry is alike governed by economic and technical laws;
both processes lead to a finished work, an 'object'. But whereas the
artist's creation is pursued to its completion, the engineer's 'object' is
248
214, 2I 5 Suetin, two plates with Suprematist designs, c. 1920
216, 217 Kasimir Malevich, cup and teapot designed for the State Pottery,
Leningrad, c. 1920
process of making an object meant, of course, that the mechanization
would be reduced to a very primitive level. In actual mass-production,
work is inevitably divided up into separate departments, and no one
sees an object through from start to finish at a practical level. The new
Constructivist ideology was above all concerned with a practical
'bridge between art and industry'.
An initial step in working out this new system was to sum up the
'laboratory' experience of the last four years.
In September 1921 Rodchenko, Stepanova, Vesnin, Popova and
Exter held an exhibition in Moscow entitled '5x5 = 25' which
summed up the group's past year's work in 'laboratory art'. The
catalogue which they produced with the exhibition is revealing of the
state of mind of the time, both in the 'rationalized' descriptions of
the paintings which it listed and the catalogue in itself, which was a
charming piece of craftsmanship. I have seen two copies of this
catalogue and both contained original watercolours by each exhibitor,
as it were the signature of each artist. It is typical that the 'end of
painting' which this exhibition announced should have been so
decoratively expressed.
That this was consciously recognized as the last stand of easel
painting as an expressive medium is made clear from the artists' own
statements in this catalogue.
Rodchenko declared: 'In 19 19 at the Tenth State Exhibition for the
77/. 212 first time I declared space constructions in painting Black on Black, at
the Nineteenth State Exhibition of the following year I declared line
as a factor of construction. At this present exhibition for the first time
in art the three primary colours are declared.' The last statement was
illustrated by three canvases of 1921 entitled Pure Red Colour, Pure
Yellow Colour and Pure Blue Colour. Included in this exhibition were
77/. 1 go such works as Line Construction of 1920. There were also study-
constructions of basic geometric elements like his Construction oj
Ills 203, 219 Distance, worked out first on paper and then in materials. A little later
III. 206 Rodchenko developed his ideas in hanging mobiles, introducing the
III. 20 3 dynamic element which unites him with Tatlin (who was then
working on his Monument project), and Gabo who was working on
III. 204 his 'Kinetic models' during 1 920-1.
Stepanova declared: 'Composition is the contemplative approach
of the artist in his work. Technique and industry have confronted art
250
with the problem of construction as an active process and not a
contemplative reflection. The "sanctity" of a work as a single entity
is destroyed. The museum which was a treasury of this entity is
///. 220 The 'Obmokhu' exhibition showed the works of thirteen young
Vkhutemas students. They exhibited their constructions in the school
itself during May 1920. These works were mainly free-standing metal
constructions. A dominant characteristic was the dynamic urge of
these works: the spiral was a typical form. None of them was a solid
piece of 'sculpture', but open-spatial compositions 'which dynamic-
ally intersect innerand outer space'. In the following year the most
prominent of these 'Obmokhu' students, the Stenberg brothers and
Kasimir Medunetsky, had a three-man show in the Vkhutemas. 6 By
this time they had identified themselves with the Constructivists and
in the following year, in November 1922, they subscribed to the
declaration which denounced and pro-
art 'as a speculative activity'
///. 239 ceeded to work chiefly in the theatre. Together with Exter, Yakulov
///. 242 and Alexander Vesnin they were the principal designers for Tairov
and Meyerhold's revolutionary productions in the Moscow Kamerny
Theatre during the 'twenties. The Stenberg brothers' cinema and
theatrical advertisements and posters were pioneer examples of
Constructivist typography and design.
As a continuation of this rationalization of 'laboratory art', in the
autumn of 192 1 a system of lectures was begun in Inkhuk in which
artists reported on their work. Unfortunately none of these lectures
III. 223 of Two Squares', published in Berlin in 1922, which seems to be the
developed example of the 'new typography' published in
first fully
the West.
It was in 1919 that Lissitzky painted his first Proun, after seeing the
great 'Tenth State Exhibition' of abstract painting in Moscow early
in that year. This exhibition was Lissitzky's first contact with the ideas
of Malevich and the other non-objectivist schools who exhibited on
this occasion. Lissitzky's interest in lettering was soon combined with
these new abstract compositions. A poster of his of 1919, reading
///. 226 'Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge', is an amusing illustration of
these 'leftish' artists' contribution to Bolshevik propaganda. In 1920
Lissitzky left 'Unovis', the Vitebsk school now under the leadership
of Malevich, and moved to Moscow to become a professor in the
77/. 1 6g Vkhutemas. Here he continued to work on his Prouns, which almost
from their beginning reflect a combination of both Suprematist and
Construed vist ideas. He was one of the chief channels of these ideas to
the West for he travelled a great deal in Western Europe during the
next few years - 1921-30 - visiting Germany, France, Holland and
Switzerland, where he came in contact with all the chief personalities
of 'the modern movement', working not only in the field of typo-
Ills 22 j, 228 graphy, but in exhibition and poster design, developing his method
according to this synthesis of Constructivist and Suprematist principles.
HI
ppM '
LZ-^.
H
K^l 224 Pyotr Miturich,
Construction, 1920
1 l^Hi>"
p *
r
2
# aJ l'
ideology had simply been called 'production art'. The term 'Con-
structivism' is said, as is the usual way with 'isms', to have been
invented by an art critic.
The various contemporary statements by the artists themselves on
Constructivism are for the most part incoherent, doctrinaire, an
unco-ordinated series of slogans: 'Art is dead! Art is as dangerous
. . .
256
Kpa
"
8 9 10
22$ The Story of Two Squares. A book often pages invented and designed by
El Lissitzky, printed in 1922. Lissitzky also did a Dutch version for the periodical
De Stijl
5.
Here are Two Squares
6. Flying towards the Earth from far away and
7. and see Black Chaos
8.
Crash all is scattered
9. and on the Black was established Red Clearly
10. Thus it ends further
257
226 El Lissitzky, Street Poster,
1919-20. Beat the Whites with
the Red Wedge
Ills 255, 256 This manifesto was published in the first number of Lej, the Con-
structivists' organ, in 1923.
227 El Lissitzky designed pull-out folder for the catalogue to the Soviet
this
section of the International Press Exhibition held in Cologne in 1930. It represents
the interior of the pavilion, for the organization of which he was responsible
228 A section of the Berlin
1923 Russian exhibition whose
arrangement was devised by
Lissitzky on a dynamic basis of
integrating the rooms with the
works exposed
From this time date the first attempts on the part of these erstwhile
abstract artists to devote themselves to practical, industrial design.
Tatlin was by far the most uncompromising in his interpretation of
these ideals and he was the only one of these artists who actually
entered a factory - the Lessner metallurgical factory near Petrograd -
in an attempt to become an 'artist-engineer'. Popova and Stepanova
did, however, go and work in a textile factory, the Tsindel, near
Moscow, where they designed fabrics. Rodchenko began co-
operating with Mayakovsky on poster-propaganda work and
developing a Constructivist method of design in typography,
introducing photography as an expressive medium.
The activities of the Constructivists now had the backing of the
efficient Proletcult organization, which provided them with regular
work and a livelihood through its contacts with industry.
The Proletcult had early set about making contact with trade union
organizations, and now under nep the scheme gained added impetus.
Artists began designing emblems, stamps, slogans, posters: by the Ills 231, 232
early 'twenties they were creating workers' clubs in which every- Hi 235
thing from the tables and chairs to the slogans on the walls and the
light-fittings were designed in a Constructivist style. It is interesting
to note the constant geometrical basis for these designs. The use of an
ideal proportion is a characteristic of Constructivist design and in this
differs so radically from the functional 'New Life' system of design
///. 234 which Tatlin was evolving during the 'twenties.
It is important to distinguish between the work of the main body
came closest to his own This was typical of his character, for
ideas.
Tatlin always chose to work apart with a few chosen disciples, rather
than with a general group. One of his pupils at the Vkhutein 8 in the
and afterwards a trusted assistant on the Letatlin glider
late 'twenties,
on which Tatlin worked during the 'thirties, describes how Tatlin
became distrustful of people to the point of madness and would never
show anyone his work, having a horror of being imitated or made
use of.
Tatlin took organic forms as the basis of his design. The natural
movement and measure of man dictated his design; whereas the
Constructivists, like the Dutch 'de Stijl' group, demanded that man
should be moulded in Futurist fashion to an arbitrary geometric
229
Varvara Stepanova,
Textile design,
1922-4
proportion. Rodchenko's furniture design, for all his talk of con- ///. 236
tinning the material in its logical inherent pattern, is not so much a
n OH TA
233 A teapot designed by a pupil of
Tatlin's in the Moscow Vkhutein
243 Lissitzky's model of his design for Sergei Tretyakov's / want a child,
1929, for Meyerhold's unrealized production.
everyday problems in everyday language, in an everyday surround-
ing, where the distance between actors and the audience was practi-
cally removed. It led eventually to the 'theatre in the round',, idea
evolved by Meyerhold and Okhlopkov in the late 'twenties. Con-
versely, this drawing of architects into the field of theatre and the
vortex of ideas of the Constructivists was of immense importance;
it led to the abrupt arrival of Russian architecture at the forefront of
European design, a field in which they had been notably behindhand
up till 191 7.
Vsevelod Meyerhold, the theatrical director trained under Stani-
slavsky, was a leading Constructivist after the Revolution. His
theory of 'Bio-mechanics' 9 was the application of Constructivist
ideas in the theatre. A number of Constructivist artists worked for
Meyerhold's theatre: Stepanova designed the sets for The Death of
Ills 244, 2 45 Tarelkin in 1922, and Liubov Popova for The Magnanimous Cuckold
in the same year. Constructivism achieved its most complete realization
in these theatrical productions, and in Sergei Eisenstein's early films.
The theory of Constructivism was not only an aesthetic but a
philosophy of life. It affected not only man's environment but man
himself. Man was to be the king of this new world, but a robot-king.
244 Varvara Stepanova. Stage set for The Death of Tarelkin produced by
Meyerhold in Moscow in 1922
This Utopia envisaged a world in which art was no longer a dream-
world to which the working man retired for relaxation and to regain
his balance, but became the very stuff of his life.
Those of the Construed vists who sought most consciously to
become artist-engineers found the fields of typographical and poster
design to be the most fruitful. Here it was possible for the artist to make
use of the most modern processes and skills and yet not to reduce the
result to the level of the machine - as was inevitable in mass-production
where industrialization, even at this point in Russia, demanded
standardization. Thus Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Klutsis and Alexei Gan -
who was largely the theorist of the group - worked out pioneer
examples of modern typographical design. Rodchenko and Gan's Ills 253, 254
work is the more purely Constructivist in principle the predominance
:
of the horizontal; the use of very heavy, square sans serif type; the
Futurist machine quality. It is here that El Lissitzky's design combines
Constructivist and Suprematist principles, and as such comes closest
to creating the synthesis which we still recognize as 'modern'
design. He uses the dynamic axis and the characteristic asym-
metry of Suprematism and he often weights the design at the top -
;
245 Luibov Popova. Stage set for The Magnanimous Cuckold. Meyerhold
Theatre, Moscow, 1922
I Pill
MJL
JWt
246 El Lissitzky. A double page from the first edition of For Reading Out Loud
by Mayakovsky, published in 1923
Ills 233, 2 $6 with Mayakovsky on Lef, the organ of the Constructivists which ran
from 1923 to 1925 and then in 1927-8 under the title of Novii Lef (New
Left). This is probably his most important work, not only for the
layout and the covers which he designed, but also for its inclusion of
examples of his creative photography, although this is now difficult
to appreciate, especially in reproduction, because of the poor quality
270
of the paper on which the magazine isphotography
printed. In his
Rodchenko likewise worked out method. It has affi-
a Constructivist
nities with that of Dziga Vertov of 'Camera-Eye' and 'Kino-Pravda'
documentary film fame, and with Sergei Eisenstein - for example, in
the catching of movement at its height, the moment of maximum
drama, obtained by a typically Constructivist low-angled shot.
Constructivism, unlike Suprematism, was essentially concerned
with the social role of art; in many tenets it echoes the nineteenth-
century 'Wanderers' - in the common disdain for 'art for art's sake'
condemned by the 'Wanderers' as a 'dishonest occupation not worthy
of a thinking man', and by the Constructivists as 'speculative activity'
to be replaced by 'socially directed art-work'. 11 Both movements
demanded that artists should concern themselves with reality 'a
hundred times more beautiful than art', proclaimed Chernishevsky;
'The proletarian revolution is not a whipping cry but a real whip
which from real life
chases out the parasitical tearing oneself from
. . .
speculative activity, one must find the way to real work, applying
one's knowledge and skill to the real, live and expedient work'. 12 Both
247 The Stenberg Brothers. Poster design for Dziga Ventov's film The
Elet'ctith, 1928
248 Klutsis, poster for first Five Year Plan: Let us fulfil the plan ofgreat works, 1930
249 A cover design by Yuri Annenkov,
1922
1929
BJMAHMHP MflflHOBCHHK
r 2 MAnHOBCKMM
f
2CA MAHHOBCKMH
1927
COBPEMEHHAR
APXMTEKTyPA
ARCHITEKTUR
DERGECENWART
^ARCHITECTURE
CONTEMPORAINE EC
CPEflEPflUMfl
previous year, and brought together those parallel ideas which had
arisen independently of one another all over Europe: those of the
Jeanneret brothers' 'Esprit Nouveau' Paris group, of the Dutch 'de
Stijl' - Rodchenko's school of Constructivism - and those
so close to
of the various non-objectivist Russian schools. This was the first
post-war, multi-lingual, international magazine of the visual arts to
unite the ideas and personalities which created the international
functionalist school of design.
The most important mark of the return of Russia to the European
artistic scene was the great exhibition of abstract art organized in the
..Ka3afl.
opyr
a He C38ft.
ocaflH"
Ha Mac
k
paa AecHTt. na neHi.
HenoBopoT/iMBan uora;
rpoMOH yjTieoa pot
255, 256 Cover design and a page
Hauie fteno
from the magazine LEF by
anep&A uiaraTb
m rnaaem* Alexander Rodchenko, 1923. This
H 3B3Tb unepepi- cover is one of the earliest and
perhaps the most important piece of
Constructivist typographical design
for it is not only a cover-design with
carefully constructed letters, but uses the
new ideas in reproductive processes
such as photo-montage and over-printing
///. 228 managed to get permission to design the interior of the gallery and
arrange the works : in his organization of this exhibition he directly
introduced the ideas which Tatlin and Yakulov had first applied in
the Moscow Cafe Pittoresque, of using the wall space as a positive
entity, an idea which Lissitzky so brilliantly further developed in his
design for the Hanover Gallery room of abstract art for Alexander
Dorner in 1926, and in the Soviet pavilions of so many international
exhibitions during the 'twenties and early 'thirties, where he worked
///. 22 j out a pioneer system of exhibition techniques, using photo-montage.
Conversely, through periodicals such as SA (Soviet Architecture) 15
the work which was going on in the West was introduced into Russia.
This magazine published work and articles by Le Corbusier, Frank
Lloyd Wright, Gropius and the 'de Stijl' group; it also discussed such
things as the use of colour in interior design, its psychological and
optical qualities. Later came Arkhitektura SSSR of 1933-6, which is
particularly interesting for its articles dealing with the 'for and
against' of Constructivist and functionalist architecture; it published
most of the buildings of both these styles in Russia, including works
by foreign architects such as the Centrsoyuz building of 1929,
designed by Le Corbusier and built in Moscow. Many foreign
architects came to Russia; for instance, the Dutch architect Mart Stam
who worked on the Magnitogorsk project in Kazakhstan. For, as in
Russia itself, so all over Western Europe artists were fired by the
experiment of Communism which was so courageously being worked
out there; from all over Western Europe artists looked to Russia for
the realization of their new vision', for in Communism they saw the
answer to the sad isolation of the artist from society which the capitalist
economy had introduced. In Russia, under this new-born regime,
they felt a great experiment was being made in which, for the first time
since the Middle Ages, the artist and his art were embodied in the
make-up of the common life, art was given a working job, and the
artist considered a responsible member of society.
276
1
Text References
CHAPTER I 6. Nikolai Ryaboushinsky (ed.) Zolotoye R11110,
Moscow, 1906-9
i. N. Chernishevsky, Esteticheskie otnosheniya
7. Ya. A. Tugenkhold 'Frantzuskoyc sobranie
iskusstva k deistritclnosti
S. Shchukina', Apollon, No. 1-2, 1914.
I.
2. N. Polcnova, Ambramtsevo. I 'ospominaniya,
Includes complete list of works in collection
illus., Moscow, 1922
X. see: Alfred Barr Jr, Matisse. His art and his
3. S. Yarcmich, Mikhail Alcxandroi'ich Vrubel.
Zhizti i tvorchestvo. illus., Moscow, iyn
public, New York, 195
9. quoted in: 'Le chemin dc la couleur', Art
4.I. Zabelin, Materiali dlya istorii ikonopisi po
Present, No. 2, 1947
arkhivnim dokumentam, 1850, and D. Rovinsky,
Obozrenie ikonopisania v Rossii do kontsa 1 7-ovo 10. Zolotoye Runo, No. 6, Moscow, 1909
I'cka 1 1. see: ref. no. 8.
7. ibid.
sia', Zolotoye Runo, No. 1, Moscow, 1908
14. N. Taravati, review of first salon of the
8. ibid. pp. 80-86
'Golden Fleece', Zolotoye Runo, No. 3,
9. ibid. pp. 31-33
Moscow, 1906
CHAPTER II
15. N. Miliuti, 'O. Soyuze', Zolotoye Runo,
No. 1, 1908
1. see: a Alexandre Benois, Vozniknouenie
16. S.Makovsky, 'Golubaya Rosa', Zolotoye
'Mira Iskusstva', Leningrad, 1928
Runo, No. 5, 1907
b Alexandre Benois, Reminiscences of the
17. ibid.
Russian Ballet, transl. Mary Bntnieva, London,
1941 18. Introduction to Zolotoye Runo Katalog
Vuistauki Kartin, 1909
2. ibid. : a
19. see: ref. no. 8
3. Richard Muther, Geschichte der Malerei im
buted the chapter on Russian art. Munich, 21. see: Color and Rhyme, No. 31, 1956, p. 19,
1893-4 col. 3
4. A.J. Meier-Grafe, Modern Art, 2 vols., 1908 22. Zolotoye Runo, No. 7/9, Moscow, 1908,
5. see: ref. no. \a pp. 5-66
4.P. P. Veiner (ed.) Stariyegodi, St Petersburg, vania, Moscow, 1940, and Russkoye Slovo,
1907-16 No. 84, Moscow, 1914
5. Sergei Makovsky (ed.) Apollon, St Peters- 3. sec: Randa, Vecher, St Petersburg, 8 March
burg, 1909-17 1909
277
4. These were the programme headings for CHAPTER VI
the first part of a lecture entitled: Having conic
1. Pobeda nad solntsem, Futuristicheskaya
see:
myself by Mayakovsky, given on 24 March
opera. Kruchenikh, Matiushina 1 Malevicha,
I9I3-
Moscow, 1913
5. see: ref no. 1
Apollon, No.
2. see:K. Malevich, O novikh sistemakh v
6. see: 3, 1914
iskusstve, Vitebsk, 1920
7. see: Kathenne Dreier, Burlink, New York,
3. ibid.
1944, p. 66
4. see: Alexander Tairov, Das Entjesselte
8. Ludwig Gewaesi, 'V Mire Iskusstva' in
Theater, Potsdam, 1923
Zolotoye Rwio, No. 2/3, Moscow, 1909,
5. Posmertnaya vuistavka Khudozhnika-
pp. 119-20
Konstruktora Popov oi. Katalog, Moscow, 1924
9. E. Nisen O Kubisme, St Petersburg,
(transl.),
who tied a brush to a donkey's tail and placed 3. Quotation from Kasimir Malevich, O
it tail-wise in front of a prepared canvas. The novikh sistemakh v iskusstve, Vitebsk, 1920
result was said to have been exhibited at the
4. ibid.
following public salon and to have received
5. 'Meeting ob iskusstve' in Iskusstvo Kommuni,
serious attention from a number of eminent
No. 1, 7 December 1918
critics before its origin was unmasked.
6. ibid.
3. from Malevich's unpublished biography
7. I am indebted to Bertold Lubetkin, the
4. sec: Oslinni Khvost i Mishcn, Moscow, 191
Constructivist architect, for this description.
5. On the back of one of his paintings, The He personally took part in this pageant and
Violin and the Cow, 1911, Malevich wrote was one of the smash-and-grab raid party
'The alogical collusion of two forms, the on the electrician's store.
violin and the cow, illustrates the moment of
8. see: a poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky,
struggle between logic, the natural law,
Order to the Army of Art (Prikaz Armii
bourgeois sense and prejudice, (signed) K.
Iskusstva)
Malevich, 191 1.'
9. see: Iskusstvo Kommuni, No. 18, 7 April
6. Vyacheslav Zavahshin, Early Soviet
see:
1919
Writers, New York, 1958, for a comparison of
Bcly's and Malevich's work and ideas. 10. see: Iskusstvo Kommuni, No. 7, 9 January
1919
7. G. Habasque, 'Les documents inedits
see:
sur les debuts de Suprematisme' in Aujourd'hui 11. sec: ref. no. 2
278
1 8 8
Vestnik Otdcla IZO Narkomprosa, No. i, 2. sec: Gom, No. 1, Moscow, 1922
15. Iskusstvo Kommuni, No. 1, 7 December Russian Literature, 1928-1912, New York,
1918 1953
'V
16. Kollegii po dclam lskusstva 5. see: Alexei Gan, Konstruktivism, Tver, 1922
i khudozhestvennoi promuishlcnnosti. 6. 'Vuishic Khudozhestvenniye Tekhni-
Muzcinii vopros' in Iskusstvo Kommuni, No. 8, cheskiye Masterskiye' (The Higher Artistic
:
279
Selected Bibliography
GENERAL WORKS J. Gregor, Das russische Theater, 1927
Alexandre Benois, History of Russian painting, W. R. Fuerst and S. J. Hume, Twentieth
New York, 19 16 (English translation of century stage decoration, 1928
Istoriya Russkoi Zhivopisi v XIX veke, St G. Kepes, Language of vision, New York, 1944
Petersburg, 1902)
V. Erlich, Russian Formalism, The Hague,
Louis Reau, L' Art russe de Pierre le Grand a nos 1955
jours, 1922. 2 vols. bibl.
Vyacheslav Zavalishin, Early Soviet Writers,
Richard Muther, Geschichte der Malerei irn New York, 1958
XIX. Jahrhnndert, Munich, 1893-4 (Chapter
E.J. Brown, The Proletarian Episode in Russian
on Russian art by Alexandre Benois)
Literature, 1928-1932, New York, 1953
Alfred Barr Jr, Cubism and Abstract Art, New
York, 1936. bibl.
L. Trotsky, Literature and revolution, New
York, 1925
El Lissitzky and Hans Arp, Die Knnstismen,
Zurich, 1925 L. Moholy-Nagy, I ision in motion, New
York, 1947
Louis Lozowick, Modern Russian Art, New
York, 1925 O. M. Sayler, The Russian theatre under the
Revolution, New York, London, 1922
Andre Salmon, Art russe moderne, Paris, 1928
Konstantin Umansky, Neue Kunst in Russland
A. Voyce, Russian architecture, New York,
1914-1919, Munich, 1920. bibl. 1948
L. Moholy-Nagy, Von Material zu Architektur, Film form ; The film sense. Essays in film theory
Munich, 1929. (English translation: The new by Sergei Eisenstein. Edited and translated by
vision; from material to architecture. New York,
'
Jay Leyda, New York, 1947
1938) Huntley Carter, The new spirit in the Russian
L. Moholy-Nagy and Kassak, Buch der
L. theatre, 1917-1928, London, New York,
nener Kiinstler, Vienna, 1922 (almost entirely Pans, 1929
illustration material) Huntley Carter, The new theatre and cinema of
Collection of the Societe Anotiyme: Museum of Soviet Russia, 1917-1923, London, 1924
Modern Art, 1920. Yale University Art Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Igor
Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, 1950.
Stravinsky Memories and Commentaries, Lon-
bibl.
don, i960
Erste russische Kimstausstelliing. Catalogue. Kurt London, The seven Soviet arts, London,
Berlin, 1922. Introduction by D. Sterenberg 1937
A. Dorner, The way beyond art, New York, M. D. Calvocoressi and G. Abraham, Masters
1947 of Russian Music, London, 1936
A. Behne, Von Kunst zur Gestaltung, Berlin, G. E. Abraham, On Russian Music, London,
1925 1939
C. G. Holme, Art in the USSR, The Studio, E. Lo Gatto, Storia della letteratura russa, Rome,
Special No., 1935 i960
G. K. Lukomskij, History of modern Russian Ernest Simmons (ed.), Through the glass oj
J.
London, 1945
painting, Soviet literature. Views of Russian society, New
G. H. Hamilton, The art and architecture of York, 1953
Russia, London, 1945 G. Struve, Twenty-five years of Soviet Russian
literature, 1918-1943, London, 1944
BACKGROUND WORKS G. Struve, Soviet Russian literature, 1917-1950,
Alexander Tairov, Das Entfesselte Theater, Oklahoma, 195 1. bibl.
Potsdam, 1923 G. Reavey, Soviet literature today, London,
Jan Tschichold, Die neue Typographie, 1928 1946; New Haven, 1947
Jay Leyda, Kino. A history of the Russian and C. Frioux, Maiakovski par lui-meme, Paris,
Soviet film, London, i960 196
280
D. Magarshack (cd.), Stanislavsky on the art of debuts de Suprematisme', Aujourd'hui: an et
Boris Pasternak, Safe Conduct, London, 1959 Julien Alvard, 'Les Idecs de Malevitch.' Art
d' Aujourd'hui, No. 5, July 1953
A. M. Ripellino, Majakovskij e H teatro russo
d'avanguardia, Turin, 1965
ART AND REVOLUTION AND
NATIONALIST MOVEMENT CONSTRUCTIVISM
S. K. Makovsky, Talachkino. L' Art decoratif R. Fiilop-Miller, The mind and face of Bol-
des ateliers de la Princesse Tenicheva, St Peters- shevism, London, 1927
burg, 1906
'G' (magazine), cd. GrarT, Kiesler, van der
M. D. Calvocoressi, Moussorgsky, London, Rohe, Richter. Berlin, 1923-6
1946 'ABC (magazine), ed. Stam, Witwer,
F. Chalyapin, Man and mask, London, 1932 Lissitzky. Basle, 1925
28l
E. and C. Paul, The Proletcult (proletarian KasimirMalevich, 1878-1935. Exhibition cata-
culture), New York, 1921 logue. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London,
Camilla Gray, 'The genesis of Socialist 1959. Introduction by Camilla Gray
Realism'. Soviet Survey, January-March, 1959 Juhen Alvard, 'Les idees de Malevitch', Art
d'Aujourd'hui (magazine), No. 5, July 1953
MONOGRAPHS ON ARTISTS Guy Habasque, 'Documents inedits sur les
A. Levinson, L. Bakst (catalogue), Paris, 1928 debuts de Suprematisme'. Aujourd'hui: art et
Will Grohmann, Kandinsky, London, i960. V. Kandinsky. Punkt und Linie zur Flache,
bibl. Munich, 1926. (An English translation: Point
Horst Richter, El Lissitzky, Cologne, 1958. and Line to Plane, New York, 1947)
bibl. El Lissitzky (withH. Arp), Die Kunstismen
Camilla Gray, 'El Lissitzky. Typographer', 1914-1924, Zurich, 1925
Typographies i960 El Lissitzky, see: Merz, 1924, No. 8/9
Jan Tschichold, 'El Lissitzky', Imprimatur III, El Lissitzky, 'Prouen' (Quotations from a
1930 letter), ABC, No. 2, Basle, 1925
El Lissitzky, Catalogue, Stedelijk van Abbe- El Lissitzky, 'Story of Two Squares' pub-
museum, Eindhoven, December 1965 lished in De Stijl, 1922 (in Dutch)
282
List of Illustrations
ALTMAN, NATHAN
Designs for decorating the great square in front of the Winter Palace in Petrograd for the
pageant to celebrate the first anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917 197 200
A stamp to commemorate Lenin's death 1924, collection: Bertold Lubctkin, London 231
ANNENKOV, YURY
A cover design 1922 249
BAKST, LEON
Les Onentales. Unrealized design for a backcloth, c. 19 10 water-colour on paper 22
L'Apres-midi d'un Faune. Sets and costumes designed by Bakst 1912, photograph of
scene in the original Diaghilev production 23
BENOIS, ALEXANDER
Versailles under Snow 1905, pen and ink on paper 3 1
Le Pavilion d'Armide. Stage set and two costumes 1907, water-colour on paper, Russian
Museum, Leningrad 26-28
BORISSOV-MUSSATOV, VICTOR
The Reservoir 1902, tempera on paper, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 36
Autumn Evening. Study for a fresco 1903, tempera, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 34
Sleep of the Gods. Study for a fresco 1903, tempera, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 35
Sunset reflection 1904, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 37
BRUNI, LEV
Construction 1917, perspex, aluminium, iron, glass, etc., presumed destroyed 221
BURLIUK, DAVID
My Cossack Ancestor c. 1908, oil on canvas 76
BURLIUK, VLADIMIR
Portrait of Benedict Livshits 191 1, oil on canvas 77
CEZANNE, PAUL
The Card Players 1890-2, oil on canvas 52! x 7I3, Barnes Foundation, Menon, USA 109
CHAGALL, MARC
The Gates of the Cemetery 1917, oil on canvas, 343 x 26^, collection: Madame Meyer-
Chagall 166
Designs for friezes for The State Jewish Theatre in Moscow 1919-20, oil on canvas 168
CIURLIONIS, MIKALOJUS
Sonata of the Stars 1908, tempera on paper, 28| x 245, Kaunas Museum, Lithuania 81
DOBUZHINSKY, MATISLAV
Man in Glasses L905-6, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 30
EXTER, ALEXANDRA
Venice 19 15, oil on canvas, private collection 176
283
City-scape c. 1916, oil on canvas i<in
A scene from Tairov's production of Romeo and Juliet in Moscow in 1921, with sets and
costumes designed by Exter 239
FALK, ROBERT
Portrait of the Tartar journalist Midhad Refatov 191 5, oil on canvas, 48! X31J, Tretyakov
Gallery, Moscow 85
FAVORSKY, VLADIMIR
Illustration to the Book of Ruth 1925, engraving 208
FILONOV, PAVEL
Man and Woman 19 12, oil on canvas, private collection 162
GAN, ALEXEI
Cover design 1927 253
GOLOSSOV, ILYA
Club of the Znev Commune Members, Moscow c. 1926. Still standing in Moscow 238
GOLOVIN, ALEXANDER
Ruslan and Ludmilla. Design for a backcloth 1902, gouache on paper 29
Boris Godunov. Design for a backcloth 1907, First scene of the Prologue, cardboard,
water-colour and gouache, 28| x 33^, Central State Theatrical Museum, USSR 25
The Evangelists 1910-1 1, oil on canvas, each 803 x 22|, artist's collection, Pans 89
Peasants Picking Apples 191 1, oil on canvas, 41 x 3 8^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 87
Cats 1911-12, oil on canvas, 33^ x 33I, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 98
The Green and Yellow Forest 191 2, oil on canvas, 40 x 33^, artist's collection, Pans 100
Portrait of Larionov 1913, oil on canvas, 4i| x 3o|, artist's collection, Paris 102
The Machine's Engine 1913, oil on canvas, Galerie Loeb, Paris 101
KANDINSKY, VASSILY
Composition 6 19 13, oil on canvas, 76^ x n8, Hermitage Museum, Leningrad 182
284
White Background 1920, oil on canvas, 37 x 54, Russian Museum, Leningrad 183
KLIUN, IVAN
Suprematist Composition c. 1916, oil on canvas, 34! X 28, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 180
KLUTSIS
Poster for 1st Five Year Plan: 'Let us fulfil the plan of great works' 1930 248
KONCHALOVSKY, PYOTR
Portrait of Georgy Yakulov 19 10, oil on canvas, 70^ X 56^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 86
KOROVIN, KONSTANTIN
Don Quixote. Stage set for Scene 4, 1906, oil on canvas 13
KUSNETSOV, PAVEL
The Blue Fountain 1905, tempera on paper, 50 X 5 if, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 43
LARIONOV, MIKHAIL
Two women bathing in a river c. 1903, oil on canvas, 28 x 39I, artist's collection, Paris 50
A Corner of the Garden c. 1905, oil on canvas, 35^ * so|, Russian Museum, Leningrad 52
The Hairdresser 1907, oil on canvas, 33^ x 29I, artist's collection, Paris 68
Walk in a Provincial Town 1907-8, oil on canvas, 18^ x 35^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 67
Evening after the Rain 1908, oil on canvas, 26| x 33^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 66
Soldiers, first version 1908, oil on canvas, 37 x 28^, artist's collection, Paris 70
Soldier at the Hairdresser 1909, oil on canvas, 46^ x 35, artist's collection, Pans 69
The Soldiers, second version 1909, oil on canvas, 34^ x 40^, artist's collection, Paris 61
Portrait of Vladimir Burliuk c. 1910, oil on canvas, 52^ X41, artist's collection, Pans 75
The Relaxing Soldier 191 1, oil on canvas, 46! X 48, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 71
Glass 191 1, oil on canvas, 41 x 38^, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 92
Blue Rayonnism 1912, oil on canvas, 25^ X 27^, collection: Boris Tcherkinsky, Paris 93
Manya, second version c. 191 2, water-colour on paper, 8x6, artist's collection, Paris 73
285
LAVINSKY
Cover design to the anthology of Mayakovsky's work entitled: 13 Years of Work.
Volume 2. Published 1922 252
LEVITAN, ISAAC
Above Eternal Peace 1894, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 14
Street poster: Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge 1919-20. 226
Berlin Exhibition of Russian Art 1923. A corner of the room designed by Lissitzky 228
Pull-out folder in catalogue to the Soviet section of the International Press Exhibition held
in Cologne in 1930 227
Model of design for Sergei Tretyakov's / want a child, 1929, for Meyerhold's unrealized
production 24
MALEVICH, KASIMIR
Flower Girl 1904-5, oil on canvas, 3I2X 39^, Russian Museum, Leningrad 105
Chiropodist in the Bathroom 1908-9, gouache on paper, 30^ x 40^, Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam 108
The Bather 1909-10, gouache on paper, 41 x 27, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 104
Taking in the Harvest 191 1, oil on canvas, 28| x 29^, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 107
The Woodcutter 191 1, oil on canvas, 37x28, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 112
The Knife-Grindcr 19 12, oil on canvas, 3 \\ < 31^, Yale Art Gallery, New Haven 157
Woman with Buckets: Dynamic arrangement 1912, oil on canvas, 31x31, The Museum
of Modern Art, New York 1 1
Head of a Peasant Girl 1913, oil on canvas, 31J x 37I, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 116
Morning in the Country after the Rain 1912-13, oil on canvas, 3I5X 3i, Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York 114
The Guardsman 1912-13, oil on canvas, 22^ x 26, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 117
Black Circle c. 191 3, oil on canvas, 42^ x 42I, Russian Museum, Leningrad 127
Black Cross c. 19 13, oil on canvas, 42! x 425, Russian Museum, Leningrad 128
Black Square c. 191 3, oil on canvas, 42^ x 42^, Russian Museum, Leningrad 126
Black Square and Red Square c. 191 3, oil on canvas, 28^ x 17^, The Museum of Modern
Art, New York 129
286
Portrait of M. V. Matiushin 191 3, oil on canvas, 41^ x 40^, private collection 1 18
Three backcloth and twelve costume designs for Victory over the Sun 191 3, pencil, gouache
on paper, Theatrical Museum, Leningrad 122-25
Suprcmatist Composition 191 4, oil on canvas, 23 x 19, The Museum of Modern Art,
New York 130
Woman beside an Advertisement Pillar 1914, oil on canvas, 28 x 25^, Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam 119
House under Construction 1914-15, oil on canvas, 37^ x 17^, collection: Mr and Mrs
Armand P, Bartos, New York 132
Dynamic Suprematism 1916, oil on canvas, 3I2X 313, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 140
Suprematist Composition 1916-17, oil on canvas, 31^ x 28, Russian Museum, Leningrad 133
Leningrad 135
Supremus No. 18 1916-17, pencil on paper, 4| x 5, collection: Eric Estorick, London 136
Suprematist Composition: White on White 191 8, oil on canvas, 31^ x 31^, The Museum
of Modern Art, New York 211
Cup and Teapot designed for the State Pottery, Leningrad c. 1920 216, 217
Future Planits. Homes for Earth-dwellers; People c. 1924, pencil on paper, 11^ 17^,
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 137
Examples of Malevich's Architectonics 1924-8, plaster, cardboard, wood, paint 138, 139
MASHKOV, ILYA
Portrait ot a Boy in an Embroidered Shirt 1909, oil on canvas, 465 x 3 1^, Russian Museum,
Leningrad 84
Portrait of E. I. Kirkalda 1910, oil on canvas, 65I x 48^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 83
MEDUNETSKY, KASIM1R
Construction No. 557 1919, tin, brass, iron, 17^ high, Yale Art Gallery, New Haven 223
MELNIKOV, KONSTANTIN
The Soviet Pavilion at the Paris Exhibition of Decorative Arts 1925 237
MILIUTI, NIKOLAI
Angel of Sorrow (decorative panel) c. 1905, gouache on paper (?) 44
MITURICH, PYOTR
Construction 1920, ink on paper, destroyed by the artist 224
287
PASTERNAK, L HO Nil)
Moscow Artists 1902, pastel on paper, Russian Museum, Leningrad
PETROV-VODKIN, KUZMA
The Playing Boys iyn, oil on canvas, Russian Museum, Leningrad 54
19 1 8 in Petrograd 1920, oil on canvas, 28| x 36^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 207
PICASSO, PABLO
Musical Instruments 191 2-1 3, oil on canvas, Hermitage Museum, Leningrad 120
PIMENOV, YURY
Give to Heavy Industry 1927, oil on canvas, 102^ X 83^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 213
PIROSMANASHVILI, NIKO
The actress Margarita 1909, oil on waxed cloth, 46-
37, Art Museum of the State of
Georgia 59
POPOVA, LIUBOV
Italian Still-life 1914, oil on canvas, wax, paper collage, 24I x 19^, Tretyakov Gallery,
Moscow 164
The Violin 1914, oil on canvas, 34! x 27, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 175
Seated Figure c. 191 5, oil on canvas, 49^ x 42^, Russian Museum, Leningrad 161
The Magnanimous Cuckold. Stage set 1922, Meyerhold production, Moscow 245
PUNI, IVAN
Plate on Table c. 191 5, walnut wood, painted china plate, collection: Zhenia
Bogoslavskaya, Pans 170
Suprematist Composition c. 19 15, wood, tin-foil, cardboard, oil, etc. on board, collection:
Zhenia Bogoslavskaya, Paris 171
REPIN, ILYA
They Did Not Expect Him 1884, oil on canvas, 41^ < 65^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 2
RODCHENKO, ALEXANDER
The Dancer 191 4, oil on canvas, private collection U.S.S.R., photograph from the
private archives of Mr Alfred Barr, Jr 185
Compass and drawing 1913-14, pen and ink, water-colour, on paper, private
ruler
collection, photograph from the private archives of Mr Alfred Barr, Jr 186
Compass and drawing 19 14-15, pen and ink, water-colour, on paper, private
ruler
collection, photograph from the private archives of Mr Alfred Barr, Jr 187
Line Construction 1920, pen and ink on paper, I2| x 7, private collection, photograph
from the private archives of Mr Alfred Barr, Jr 190
Composition 1919, gouache on paper, \i\ 9^, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1X8
Abstract Composition c. 1920, oil on canvas, private collection, photograph from the
private archives of Mr Alfred Barr, Jr 195
Construction 1920, gouache on paper, private collection, photograph from the private
archives of Mr Alfred Barr, Jr 205
Construction of distance 1920, wood, private collection, photograph from the private
archives of Mr Alfred Barr, Jr 219
Hanging Construction 1920, wood, private collection U.S.S.R., photograph from the
private archives of Mr Alfred Barr, Jr 206
Line construction c. 191 7, oil on board, private collection, photograph from the private
archives of Mr Alfred Barr, Jr 194
Worker's Club designed for the Soviet Pavilion at the Paris Exhibition of Decorative
Arts in 1925 235
Examples of multi-purpose furniture and clothing designed under Rodchenko in his
Metal-work department in the Moscow Vkhutemas. Middle 1920's 236
Cover design to an anthology of Mayakovsky's poetry entitled: 'No. S' 1927 254
Cover design and a page from the magazine 'LeP with lay-out by Rodchenko 255, 256
ROERICH, NICHOLAS
Prince Igor. Design for a set 1909, tempera, gouache on paper, 20 >
30, Victoria and
Albert Museum, London 24
ROSANOVA, OLGA
Geography 1914-15, oil on canvas 174
SAPUNOV, NIKOLAI
Mascarade. Design for a set c. 1906, gouache on paper, Russian Museum, Leningrad 39
Colombine's Best Man. Three costume designs 1910, water-colour on paper, The
Theatrical Museum, Leningrad 40
SARYAN, MARTIROS
Man with Gazelles c. 1905, tempera 45
SEROV, VALENTIN
October. Domotkanovo 1895, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 15
SOMOV, KONSTANTIN
The Kiss 1902, etching 3 2
289
STENBERG BROTHERS
Poster design for Dziga Vertov's film: The Eleventh 1928, photo-montage 247
SUETIN
Plate with Suprematist design c. 1920, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 214
Plate with Suprematist design c. 1920, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 215
SURIKOV, VASSILY
The Boyanna Morosova 188 1-7, oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 9
TATLIN, VLADIMIR
Vendor of Sailors' Contracts 1910, gouache on paper 96
Bouquet 191 1, oil on canvas, 36 X i8|, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 95
Fishmonger 191 1, gum-paints, cardboard, 29! x 38f, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 94
Hall in the Castle. Design for a backcloth for: Emperor Maximilian and his son Adolf 191 1,
cardboard, water-colour, gum-paints, gouache, 3 if X 36|, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 141
The Sailor 191 1-12, oil on canvas, 28+ 28^, Russian Museum, Leningrad 97
Composition from a Nude 191 3, oil on canvas, 56^ -
42^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 144
The Bottle c. 191 3, tin-foil, wall-paper, etc., presumed destroyed 150
Wood. Sketch for a backcloth for the opera: Ivan Susanin 19 13, gum-paints, cardboard,
2I 4 v
37|' Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 142
Painting Reliefs 191 3-14, wood, wall-paper, iron, etc., presumed destroyed 151, 152
Painting Relief: Selection of materials 19 14, iron, plaster, glass, etc., presumed destroyed 154
Relief 1914, wood, glass, tin can, etc., presumed destroyed 153
Complex Corner Relief 191 5, iron, aluminium, zinc, etc., presumed destroyed 158
Board No. 1 : Old Basmannaya 1916-17, egg-paint, gilt, on board, 4if x 22^, Tretyakov
Gallery, Moscow 155
Relief 1917, wood, zinc sprayed on iron, 39I X 25^, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 156
'New Way of Life'. A set of worker's clothes modelled by Tatlin and a functionalist stove
c. 1918 230
Monument to the Illrd International 1919-20, wood, iron and glass, remnants of this
maquette are stored in the Russian Museum, Leningrad 203
Maquette of a stage set for Zan-Gesi, produced by Tatlin in Petrograd in the Museum of
Artistic Culture in 1923 146
Comedy of the 17th Century. Two stage sets for the production of Ostrovsky's play in the
Moscow Arts Theatre in 1933 148, 149
290
UDALTSOVA, N A I) EZ HDA
At the Piano c. 1914, oil on canvas, 42 35, Yale Art Gallery, New I laven, USA 172
VASNETSOV, VICTOR
Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden). Design for a stage set 1883 12
VESNIN, ALEXANDER
The Man who was Thursday. Stage set for a play based on Chesterton's novel produced
by Tairov in the Moscow Kamcrny Theatre in 1923 242
VRUBEL, MIKHAIL
Egyptian costume design 1890's, pen and ink on paper, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 10
Sketch for an illustration to Lermontov's poem: The Demon 1890, pencil on paper,
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 21
Portrait of Valery Briussov 1905, pencil, charcoal, oil on paper, Tretyakov Gallery,
Moscow 17
YAKULOV, GEORGY
Le Pas d'Acier. Maquette of the set and costumes for Diaghilev's production, 1927, and
a scene from the production 240, 241
ZINOVIEV, A.
Table designed and executed in the Talashkino workshops c. 1905 5
MISCELLANEOUS
The Abramtsevo Church 1880-2 3
Gingerbread figures made in traditional wooden carved moulds from Archangel 57, 58
Drama in Cabaret No. 13. Shot from the film showing Larionov and Goncharova. 1914 78
Icon of the Northern School of Russia. Descent from the Cross. Fifteenth century 143
The first 'Obmokhu' exhibition held in the Vkhutemas, Moscow in May 1920 220
The Cafe Pittoresquc, Moscow, 191 7, designed by Tatlm, Yakulov and Rodchcnko 196
Malevich teaching pupils in the Institute of Artistic Culture, Leningrad, 1925 218
291
1 1 1 1
Index
References in italics detune illustration number:
'Blaue Reiter' group see 'Blue Rider' 'Culture of materials' i76ff., 243
Blok, Alexander 39, 48, 65
'Blue Rider' group 62, 93, 116, 118, 122, 131, Dada 155, 160, 186-7, 215
132, 134,148, 193, 194, 238 Dargomuishsky, Alexander 24
'Blue Rose' group 62, 71-2, 74-80, 83-93 Degas, Edgar 48, 50, 68
passim, no, 112 Deineka 233
Boccioni, Umberto 193, 199 Delaunay, Robert 120, 193, 202
Bocklin, Arnold 49, 50 The Demon (Lermontov) 32, }}; 18, 21
Bogdanov 244-5 Denis, Maurice 70, 82, 100, 128
292
Derain, Andre 82, 145 Gauguin, Paul 49, 51, 68, 69, 70, 83, 84, 97,
Diaghilev, Sergei 23, 42-3, 44-7, 48, 50-6 45
passim, 60, 61, 67, 71, 75, 97, 99, 109, 117, Die Gegenstatidlose Welt 241
120, I4I, 185, 239, 265; 2j, 24O, 24I Germany &. German culture 9, 38, 40-1, 43,
Dobroliubov, Nikolai 10, 274 49, 50, 5 1, 61, 77, 1 26, 1 86, 193, 274; see aho
Dobuzhinsky, Rostislav 50; 30 Munich
Dongen, van 83, 88 Gleizes, Albert 120
'Donkey's Tail' group & exhibitions [325 Glinka, Mikhail 56, 170
passim, 146, 148, 150, 170 Gogh, Vincent van 51, 68, 83, 85, 100, 104,
Dorner, Alexander 276 122, 135, 145
Dostocvsky, Fyodor 9 Gogol, Nikolai 12-13, 3 X
Drama Cabaret (film) 115; 78
in 'Golden Fleece' group, magazine & exhibi-
Du Cubisme 120 tions 66, 69, 70-1, 80-93 passim, 97, 104,
Duchamp, Marcel 193 114, 120, 123, 146
Golossov, Ilya 238
Ehrenburg, Ilya 274-5; 2 5 Golovin, Alexander 23, 44, 50, 56, 60; 2,5, 29
Eisenstein, Sergei 268, 271 Goncharov, Sergei 97, 98
England, art of 44, 48, 50, 51 Goncharova, Natalia 27, 50, 55, 72, 83, 84, 86,
'EspritNouveau' group 275 88, 89, 92, 93, 96, 97-100, 103, 104, 108,
'Evenings of Contemporary Music' 66 109, 111-18 passim, 122, 127, 128, 131, 132,
'Exhibition of Leftist Trends' 21 1 133, 134, 141, 142-3, 146, 153, 168, 172,
Exhibitions, Diaghilev's 44, 45, 49, 50, 54-5, 174, 185, 187, 197, 216; 55, 56, 62, 64, 65,
71, 76, 99, 120 (For other exhibitions ..sec 78, 82, 87-9, 98, 100-3; Fishing 127; 88;
under their titles or names of organising Peasants Picking Apples 128, 134; 87
groups) Grabar, Igor 50
Expressionism 126, 134, 187 Gropius, Walter 276
Exter, Alexandra 1 1 1, 112, 114, 118, 129, 193, Guro, Elena 108, 114
200, 202, 206, 243, 250, 251, 252, 265; 176,
177, 239 Heart of a Marchioness (ballet) 52
Heckel, Erich 126
Falk,Robert 27, 90, 91, 122, 126, 233; 85 Heine, T. T. 44
Fauvism 61, 68, 82, 85, 88, 97, 100, 126, 134, Hilea 110, 113
141 Holbein 118
Favorsky, Vladimir 233, 238; 208
Feuerbach, Anselm 40 Icons 18, 21, 54-5, 60, 68, 97, 148, 168-9; 143
Filippov 213 Impressionism 27, 40-1, 43, 44, 56, 60, 68, 71,
Films 115, 268; 78, 79 83, 102-3, l 4
Filonov, Pavel 115, 185, 189-93, !94! 162, l ^3\ 'The Impressionists' exhibition 114
Man and Woman 187; 162; People - Fishes Industrial art 204, 246-9, 258-61; 214-17,
187; 163 230-6
Filosofov, Dmitri 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 47, 48, 51 Inkhuk 233-5, 245, 246, 248, 256, 274-5; 218
Firebird 67 Institute of Artistic Culture see above Inkhuk
'5 x 5 = 25'
exhibition 250 Isknssti'o Kommuni 2} 1
Fokine, Michael 54, 56 Italy see under Futurism; see also Rome,
Folk art 14, 18, 43, 44, 93, 97, 134; 4, 57, 58, Venice
60, 1
15 Izdebsky, Vladimir 116
Fonvisin 1 12 IZO Narkompros 220, 228, 230ff.
France & French culture 27, 46, 48-9, 50, 51,
61, 65, 67-8, 70, 75, 82, 83, 85, 88, 92, 102, Jeanncret bros. 275
120, 122, 126, 127, 193 Jewish art 187, 253; 167, 168
Futurism 27, 56, 93-4, 98, 107-8, 114, 115,
129, 134, 142, 155, 158, 160, 185m, 202rT., Kamensky, Vassily 214
219, 221, 230, 236 Kandinsky, Vassily 62, 116, 118, 122, 129, 131,
132, 143, 194- 209, 211, 228, 230, 232, 233,
Gabo, Naum 226, 230, 239, 246, 248, 249, 234-5, 238, 246, 249; 182-4
250; 204 Kemeny 274
Gan, Alexci 248, 256-8, 269; 253 Khardzhev, Nikolai 94, 136
293
,
Khlcbnikov, Victor 108, 155, 174, 214, 231 103, no, 114, 128, 133, 134, 141, 143-67,
Kiev 114, 129, 187, 253; Cathedral of St 172-3, 185, 189, 193, 194, 197, 198-200,
Vladimir 33; St Cyril church 29, 31-2; 204, 206-13 passim, 219, 231, 232, 233, 234,
School of Art 145 240-1, 242, 246-7, 249, 254, 269; 104-8,
Khun, Ivan 204, 208; 180 110-14, 116-19, 121-40, 145, 157, 211, 216,
Klutsis 269; 248 217; photograph of, teaching 218; archi-
'Knave of Diamonds' group & exhibitions 9 1 tectural projects 167, 180, 247; 136-9;
112, 115, 120, 122, 126, 128, 131, 134, 135, Black Square 160, 161, 165; 126; Chiropodist
143, 160, 172, 211, 238 in the Bathroom 146, 148 ; 108; An Englishman
Konchalovsky, Pyotr 27, 32, 122, 126; 86; in Moscow 155, 187, 212; 121; Flower Girl
Portrait qfGeorgy Yakuloi> 126; 86 145-6; 105; Haymaking 150, 153; 111; Head
Korovin, Konstantin 16, 23, 27, 43, 44, 47, 50, of a Peasant Girl 154; 116; Knife-Grinder
56, 60, 71, 72; 13 172, 198-200; 157; Morning in the Country
Kruchenikh, Alexei 27, 108, 114, 155, 158, after Rain 153; 114; Peasants in Chnrch 148;
185, 218, 240 110; Planits see Architectural projects;
Kupnn, Alexander 126 White on White series 166, 240; Woman
Kushner, Boris 258 with Buckets and a Child 147, 148, 153;
Kusnetsov, Pavel 27, 50, 55, 60, 72, 74-6, 83, 106; Woman with Buckets, Dynamic arrange-
84, 86, 88, 91, 233; 38, 41-3; Birth 76; 41 ment 153, 172; 113; Woodcutter 151, 153;
1 12
'Laboratory art' 248 ft. Malyutin, Sergei 44, 50
Landscape painting 16, 29, 36, 75, 114; 14, 13 Mamontov, Elizabeth 11-14, 17, 20; Savva
Lanseray 46, 47, 50 9, n-14, 23-4, 27, 29, 35, 47, 50, 60
Larionov, Mikhail 27, 29, 50, 55, 72, 83, 84, Mannetti, Fihppo 93-4
86, 88, 89, 92-109 passim, m-15 passim, Marquet, Albert 82, 88
118, 122, 126-3 5 passim, 142, 143, 145, 146, Mashkov, Ilya 27, 122, 83, 84; Portrait of a Boy
153, 160, 167, 168, 172, 185, 187, 195, 197, in an Embroidered Shirt 126; 84; Portrait of
216; 50-3, 61, 66-75, 78, So, 90-3, 99; Fishes E.I. Kirkalda 123, 126; 83
89, 103; 53; Portrait of Vladimir Bitrliuk 134; Matisse, Henri 49, 67, 68, 69, 82, 85, 88, 91,
73; Soldiers series 102, 106, 109, 127; 68-71; 103, 104, 120, 122, 123, 126, 134, 146
Spring 109; 74 Matiushin 1 14, 185
Le Corbusier, Charles 276 Matveev, Alexander 75
Lc/magazine 258, 270; 255, 256 Mayakovsky, Vladimir 27, 108, no, 113, 115,
Lc Fauconnier, Henri 83, 120, 122, 193 140, 185, 190, 194, 216, 220, 258, 259, 270;
Leger, Fernand 154-5, 173. ! 93 79, 251, 252, 254
Leibl, Wilhelm40, 118 Medunetsky, Kasimir 202, 252; 223
Lenin 244-5 Melnikov, Konstantin 264; 237
Leningrad Art Academy 91; Marhnsky Menzel, Adolf von 40, 118
(Kirov) Theatre 38, 52, 54, 60 Mcrcereau, Alexandre 120; Henri 69, 82
Lentulov, Anstarkh 27, 112, 122 Merezhkovsky, Dmitri 39, 47, 48
Lermontov, M.Y. 32, 33 Meyerhold, Vsevelod 204, 224, 258, 268;
Leskov, N. S. 174 243-5
Levitan, Isaac 16, 23, 27, 29, 50, 75, 90; 14 Miliuti bros. 50, 72, 74, 77, 80, 85, 88; 44, 47;
Liadov, Anatoly 67 Nikolai Angel oj Sorrow 77-8; 44; Vassily
Liebermann, Max 40, 118 Legend So; 47
'The Link' exhibition 112 Mitunch, Pytor 222, 224
Lissitsky, Lazar (El) 54, 189, 193, 241, 253-4, Monet, Claude 48, 50, 68, 70, 71
269, 270, 274, 275-6; 1 67, 169, 225-8, 243, Moreau, Gustave 61, 62
246, 250, 251; Story of Two Squares 253-4; Morosov, Ivan n, 69-70, 83, 120, 145, 173
225 Moscow 9, 10, 11, 14, 21, "22, 50, 84, 93, 98,
Livshits,Benedict 129, 131; portrait of 77 114, 115, 132, 133, 194, 231, 234, 246;
'Lubki' 97, 105, 134, 253; 60, 63 Academy of Sciences 235; Bolshoi Theatre
Lunacharsky, Anatoly 228, 230, 232, 235, 244, 38; Cafe Pittoresque 213-14, 215, 276; 196;
245 College &
school of artists 16, 27, 29, 60, 61,
62, 71-2, 75, 89, 98, 101, 102, 1 10, 11 1, 122,
Makovsky, Sergei 75 168, 232; Kamerny Theatre 200, 202, 208,
Malcvich, Kasimir 6, 41, 69, 80, 96, 97, 100, 252, 265; 242; Lenin Mausoleum 264;
294
Stroganov School of Applied Art 21 1, 232, Post-Impressionism 5, 68, 82, 83, 120
236; Vkhutein/Vkhutemas 173- ' x ^ 232-4, Prakhov, Adrian 12, 29
252, 254, 260, 261 220 ; Primitivism 97, 104, 110, 114, 127, 134, 141
Moussorgsky, Modest 9, 1 !, 24, 55 Prince Igor ballet 43, 56; 24
Munich 43, 49, 65, 90, 93, no, 115, 1 1 S, 122, Printing see Typography
i.U, '94
i.?i, 'Private Opera' of Mamontov 2}, 24, 60
'Museums of Artistic Culture' 231 Prokofiev, Serge 67
Proletcult 244-5, 2 59
Nabi group 37, 51, 61, 68, 70, 76, 82, 89 Puni, Ivan 193, 194, 195, 204, 208, 221, 2}2\
Narkompros 244-5 172, 173
Nazarenes 9 Punin, Nikolai 177, 220, 230, 231
Nesterov, Mikhail 18, 40, 48, 50 Pushkin, A.S. 98
Neuekunstlervereinigimg 1 16
'Nevsky Pickwickians' 37, 39, 40, 43, 44, 56 Rayonmsm 115, 136-42, 153, 1 85 fT. ;
go
The New Way magazine 65 'Red Cossack' propaganda train 224; 201
Nijinsky, Vaslav 54, 56 'Red Star' Agitational Boat 202
Nurok, Alfred 44, 47, 48, 66 Renoir, Pierre Auguste 68, 70, 83
Nuvel, Walter 39, 44, 47, 48, 66 Repin, Ilya 14, 18, 29, 33, 50; 2, 8; They Did
Not Expect Him 1 4 ; 2
'O.io. The Last Futurist Painting Exhibition' Revolution (19 17) 219 et seq.
295
1
Shchuscv, Alexei 264 185, 186, 200, 202, 204, 208, 252, 258, 265,
Shishkin, Ivan 16 268; 10-13, 22-9, 39, 40, 122-5, t.41, 142,
Shterenberg, David 228, 230, 232 146-9, 239-43
Shwartz, Vyacheslav 21-2 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri 83, 89, 91, 100
Sisley, Alfred 68, 83, 89 'Tramway V
exhibition 160, 178, 194, 202,
Slavophile movement 10 204
Snegurochka 18, 24; ;/, 12 Tretyakov, Pavel 1
'Socialist Realism' 265 Trubctskoi, Pavel 98
Somov, Konstantm 39, 46, 50, 52, 61, 118; Typography 47-8, 252, 253-4, 257-8, 259,
32 269-70; 246-56
Stanislavsky, Konstantm 24
State Exhibitions 236, 238, 240, 250, 254 Udaltsova, Nadezhda 193, 196, 197, 207, 2}};
'Stcfanos/Vanok' exhibition 111 172
Stelletsky,Dmitri 50, 71, 100 'Union of Russian Artists' 72, 90
Stcnberg bros. 202, 252; 247 'Union of Youth' 115, 136, 146, 148, 153,
Stepanova, Varvara 238, 240, 243, 250-1, 256, 160, 168, 172, 185, 189, 236
259, 268; 229, 244 Utkin, Alexei 50, 78, 80, 83
Dc Stijl movement 260, 275, 276
'The Store' exhibition 211, 212 Vallotton, Felix 51, 82
Stravinsky, Igor 56, 67 Vasnetsov bros. 14, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 33, 48,
Stroganov family 18 50; 8, 11, 12
Sudeikin 78 Vclde, Henry van de 48
Suetin 245; 214, 215 Venice 32, 38
Suprematism 6, 69, 80, 97, 103, 109, 141, Vcrlaine, Paul 48
I58ff., 185, 204 If., 234, 236, 240, 245, 254, Vesnin, Alexander 176, 202, 240, 243, 250,
269 252, 265; 242
Sunkov, Vassily 22, 29; 9; Boyarina Morosova Victory over the Sun (opera) 158, 185, 186;
22; 9 122-5
Surrealism 155, 187 Vienna 65, 118, 119: Secessionist 49, 86 group
Svomas see Petrograd Free Studios Vitebsk 187, 234, 240-1, 249, 253, 254
Les Sylphides 56 Vlaminck, Maurice de 88
Symbolism 39, 43, 48, 51, 57, 61, 62, 65, 70, Volkonsky, Prince Sergei 51-2
71-2, 76, 80, 102, 115, 143 Voloshin, Maximilian 85-6
Vrubcl, Mikhail 15, 29, 31-6, 44, 50, 56, 60,
Tairov, Alexander 200, 202, 252, 265 71, 74, 78, 80, 100; 7, 10, 17-21; Dance of
Talashkino estate & workshops 43-4; 5 Tamara 32; 18
'The Target' exhibition 136, 146, 153 Vmllard, Edouard 70, 82, 83, 89, 103, 128, 145
Tatlin, Vladimir 6, 27, 96, 97, 109, 133, 135,
16783, 195, 196, 204, 206-16 passim, 219, 'Wanderers' 6, 9-12, 22, 29, 33-4, 39, 40, 55,
220, 224, 225, 231-4 passim, 247, 248, 250, 70, 247, 265, 271
251, 259, 260-1, 264, 276; 94-7, 141, 142, Wilde, Oscar 62, 115
144, 146-56, 158-60, 230, 233, 234; portrait World of Art magazine 29, 40, 43, 44, 46, 47,
of 99; photograph of 230; Bottle 178-9; 48, 51, 56, 65, 120
150; Composition from a Nude 169, 172; 144; 'World of Art' movement 37-67 passim, 70-1,
'Corner Reliefs' 181, 207; 158, 160; Letatliti 72, 76, 99, 100, 118, 170
glider 180, 182, 183, 260; 159; Monument to Wright, Frank Lloyd 276
the 1 1 lid International 225-6; 203; 'Painting
Reliefs' & reliefs 176-83 passim; 150-6; Yakulov, Georgy 72, 193, 194, 196, 202, 214,
Relief (1914) 180; 153 252, 265, 276; 240, 241 ;
portrait of 86
Taunde Palace Exhibition (1905) 54 Yakunchikova, Maria 20
Tclyakovsky 52-3 Yavlensky, Alexei 62, 116, 122
Tenisheva, Prince 43; 5; Princess 44, 47
Terasopol 100-1 Zhcverzhcycv, L. 115
Theatre, designs for 18, 23-4, 27, 35, 40, 42, Zorn, Anders 43
43, 50, 51, 54-7 passim, 71, 109, 135. 169-70, Zuloaga, Ignacio 43
296
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